SHANGHAI, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- With the international oil price consolidating for three years, the energy sector is witnessing significant transformation around the globe. Under such circumstance, China’s oil and gas industry is entering a new stage as China is seeking to make natural gas one of its main energy resources.
In order to better serve China’s oil and gas industry, China Economic Information Service (CEIS), together with Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX), held the 2017 China Oil and Gas Reform Summit in Shanghai on December 20.
The summit gathered government officials, industry experts and executives from large energy enterprises to discuss the opportunities for China’s oil and gas industry as well as the solutions for challenges.
Li Jian, vice president of CEIS and chairman of SHPGX, said at the summit that SHPGX is not only a major achievement of China’s market-oriented reform on oil and gas prices, but also, in turn, provides strong support for deepening the reform for China’s oil and gas industry.
The volume of natural gas traded on SHPGX has been surging since the platform’s formal operation on November 26, 2016, and is expected to reach 50 billion cubic meters (on the basis of bilateral trade) in 2017, accounting for about 11 percent of China’s total natural gas consumption, Li said.
SHPGX also started trading oil products on November 29 this year. Up till now, it has more than 1,500 registered trading members.
As China is pushing ahead the project of “replacing coal with natural gas” in the north, natural gas consumption in China would see continuous growth in the future. Moreover, energy authorities are also strengthening supervision on natural gas transmission. As a result, the transmission cost of natural gas would decrease to a certain extent, according to Zhang Yuqing, former deputy director of the National Energy Administration,
Zhang Yousheng deputy director of Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), noted that China should stick to the idea of environmental protection in the process of energy production and consumption, which means the country will attach more importance on energy-saving and promotion of clean energy, improve the scale of natural gas and renewable energy, and establish intellectual energy systems.
According to Qian Xingkun, deputy director of Economic & Technology Research Institute under China National Petroleum Corporation, since oil prices started correction in 2014, Chinese oil enterprises have sped up the process of “going global”. In the meantime, they are also optimizing their development in the overseas market. Qian reminded that Chinese oil enterprises should pay more attention to risks such as the changes in international oil prices, geopolitics and relevant policies of the partner countries.
Under the Belt and Road Initiative, there have been some 30 Chinese oil and gas enterprises participating in more than 200 overseas projects covering some 50 countries in the Middle East, America, Central Asia, Russia, and Africa. These projects will boost the economy of those countries, and secure China’s energy safety as well, said Zang Jianjun, executive director of CEFC China Energy Company Limited. In the future, China’s oil and gas dependency upon foreign countries is expected to further rise, Zang added. (Contributed by Zhou Yuran; edited by Yang Qi, kateqiyang@xinhua.org)
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