Obviously, there are two sides of opinion in this question. One side (enviromntalist's) is that enviromental issues are more important for the company than financial one. This is the conclusion which enviromentalists make from the fact that the company does not drill oil wells (and this is exactly the second boldfaced statement). And this conclusion is based on the premises that the company could extract high profits from the project, which is provided in the first boldfaced statement. Another side (expert's) is that the company does not drill not because of environment issues but because of real financial issues which is connected with forecasts about negative profitability of such projects in the long-term. And this conclusion is really the conclusion of the argument.
So, the right answer is (C)
Perhaps you could use the strategy of "elimination" which is provided in
Manhattan GMAT Prep. We find that the first boldface stuff is premises and the second stuff is concusion.
(B) and (D) tells that the first statement is a conclusion, so we eliminate them.
(A) and (E) tell that the second boldface stuff is the "premise" which supports the conclusion or calls it into question, so they are also wrong.
So, the only right answer is (C)
Finally, I could say that there are rather a lot of questions with two opposite side of view in "Determine the role of Boldface" type of questions. Frequently this sides fugurate as conclusions. So you should drill solving these questions.
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