1-rouse 唤醒，激励

2-head 朝某个方向行进

Bored journalists roused themselves to prepare to write stories they expected never to be read, before they could at least head to the pub.

3-out of nowhere 突然，出人意料地

4-bombshell (令人不快的) 出人意料的消息，爆炸性新闻

And then, out of nowhere, came a bombshell.

5-downward pressure 下行压力

Downward pressure on oil prices from the coronavirus panic was posing an obvious to Saudi Arabia's still heavily oil-dependent economy.

6-cartel (多家公司为控制价格和限制竞争而组成的) 卡特尔，同业联盟

And this is what a cartel like the Opec for: to agree to release less oil into the market, pushing the price back up.

7-motion （会议中正式提出准备表决的）提议，动议

8-barrels per day 原油产量单位：桶/天

A Saudi-led motion proposed a cut of 1.5 million barrels per day.

9-outright 彻底，立刻，当场

To everyone's shock, Russia rejected this outright.

10-saturated 饱和的

11-henceforth 从此以后

The market was already saturated, the Russians insisted, and henceforth the price should be determined by market forces.

12-assault 攻击，殴打，袭击

The pandemic could be used as cover for an assault on America's recently acquired status as the world's top oil producer.

13-decent 相当不错的，得体的

It will still bring lower prices at the petrol station and is, in itself, a fairly decent stimulus.

14-fall-out 吵架，不和

15-on the back of 由于

A Russia-Saudi fall-out will also be welcomed on the back of a bitter dispute between Russia and Turkey that recently left their armies fighting each other in northern Syria.