周四中午左右，总部位于俄克拉荷马州的大宗商品交易员丹尼斯·基斯勒的收件箱异常安静，尽管美国总统唐纳德·特朗普关于伊朗战争的新言论让油价陷入剧烈波动。
Around noon on Thursday, Oklahoma-based commodities trader Dennis Kissler’s inbox went eerily quiet, even as new comments on the Iran war by US President Donald Trump sent oil into a volatile stretch.
又过了一个小时，他的团队才意识到邮件无法发送，开始改打电话联系客户。
It took another hour for his team to realize emails weren’t going through and start calling clients instead.
“我们陷入了一小时的‘盲区’。这绝对打乱了我们的节奏，”基斯勒说。他使用微软公司的 Outlook 与客户沟通，其中许多是页岩油生产商的高管。
“We were in a one hour black hole. It definitely threw us off,” said Kissler, who uses Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook to communicate with clients, many of whom are executives at shale producers.
微软旗舰软件自周四起发生大规模故障，波及全球政府机构、企业和交易员，让包括基斯勒在内的许多人不得不尝试其他沟通方式。基斯勒担任 BOK Financial Securities Inc. 交易高级副总裁。在某些情况下，交易员退而求其次，恢复了老派做法，包括员工通过电话和传真机接单、传达成交回报。
A major outage of Microsoft’s flagship software starting Thursday hit government offices, businesses and traders around the world, leaving many, like Kissler, who serves as senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial Securities Inc., to try other forms of communication. In some cases, traders reverted to old-school methods, including employees taking orders and relaying fills by phone and fax machine.
对石油交易员而言，这次故障给本已因中东数月冲突而天翻地覆的市场又增添了一层复杂性。在当今由新闻驱动的市场中，价格可能因交易员解读每一个与美伊和谈相关的进展而瞬息万变，任何延误下单或平仓都可能造成高昂代价。
For oil traders, the outage added another layer of complexity to a market already upended by months of conflict in the Middle East. Any delay to putting on or unwinding a trade can prove costly in today’s headline-driven market, where prices can turn on a dime as traders parse every development tied to US-Iran peace talks.
微软周五表示，在恢复访问和服务可用性方面取得了进展。不过，该公司警告称，20 多款产品和服务的用户可能继续遇到错误。交易员在故障期间面临的关键痛点之一是大宗商品价格数据。
Microsoft on Friday said it was making progress in efforts to restore access and service availability. Still, the company warned that users of more than 20 products and services may continue to encounter errors. One of the key pain points for traders during the outage has been commodity price data.
在爱荷华州，成品油经纪人肯·马洛伊于周四当地时间中午前意识到无法访问邮箱。他尝试了数小时，但最终未能发出他每天发布四次、详述燃油价格供肯布罗燃油经纪公司客户参考的报告。他一直尝试到深夜，问题仍未解决，最终在周五早些时候发出了周四的报告。
In Iowa, refined products broker Ken Malloy realized just before noon local time on Thursday that he couldn’t access his email. He tried for hours but ultimately couldn’t send out a report detailing fuel prices for clients of Kembro Fuel Brokers that he publishes four times a day. He continued to try late into the night but the issue wasn’t fixed and he ended up sending Thursday’s report early Friday morning.
大宗商品交易商以及更广泛的石油天然气行业——从钻探商到炼油商——都依赖几家报价机构发布的价格。主要机构之一、标普全球旗下的普氏周四提醒客户，因故障价格更新可能延迟，并要求与其共享信息的市场参与者通过电话或即时通讯软件联系，因为公司无法通过常规渠道接收数据。据普氏称，天然气和生物燃料价格出现延迟，22 项生物燃料价格将在故障解决前暂不发布。
Commodity traders and the oil and gas industry more broadly — from drillers to refiners — rely on prices published by several reporting agencies. One of the main agencies, S&P Global’s division Platts, alerted clients Thursday that price updates may be delayed due to the outage and asked market participants who share information with them to communicate via phone or instant messenger as the company was unable to receive data via Natural gas and biofuels prices were delayed and 22 biofuels prices would not publish until the outage is resolved, according to Platts.
截至周五纽约时间下午，普氏的警报系统显示“事故现已解决”。与此同时，休斯敦的一位油品交易员面临多项内部问题：电子邮件停止工作，显示盈亏和风险敞口的关键报表瘫痪。
As of Friday afternoon in New York, Platts’ alert system says the “incident has now been resolved.”Meanwhile, an oil trader in Houston faced several internal issues as email stopped working and key reports showing profits and risk exposures broke down.
部分交易商相对未受影响，他们要么使用未绑定微软的替代电子邮件服务，要么依赖 ICE Chat 等即时通讯工具开展业务。
Some traders were relatively insulated from the outage, either using alternative email services not tied to Microsoft or relying on instant messaging services like ICE Chat to conduct business.
微软故障波及各大宗商品市场。对于金属而言，交易本身未受干扰，因为交易商可通过 CME Direct、Trading Technologies 或场外平台进行电子交易。
The Microsoft malfunction has been felt across commodities markets. For metals, trading itself wasn’t disrupted because traders could execute electronically through CME Direct, Trading Technologies or OTC platforms.
CCMA LLC 特种金属部门董事总经理约翰·波特表示，此次故障“确实带来不便”。但他也指出另一个启示：“打电话依然管用。”
John Porter, managing director of special metals at CCMA LLC, said the outage was an “inconvenience for sure.”But there was another takeaway: “A phone call still works,” he said.