Grabbing oil by various countries to improve the difficulty of China's oil reserves

Iran announced on the 19th that it stopped supplying fuel to Britain and France and the international oil price rose strongly. The international situation has intensified turmoil, and China’s dependence on crude oil has been rising year after year. The issues concerning China’s oil reserves are also of particular concern.

A report issued by the Research Institute of Economics and Technology of CNPC recently stated that the eight strategic oil storage bases constructed in China in the second phase will be completed in 2012 with a total storage capacity of 170 million barrels. The International Energy Agency (IEA) also recently estimated that China’s new crude oil storage capacity may reach 79 million barrels in 2012.

After interviewing a number of industry insiders, the reporter learned that there is room for further improvement in China’s oil reserves and that both the country’s strategic reserves and its corporate commercial reserves are advancing. In order to do a good job of oil reserves, it is necessary to review the situation, and to balance the international oil prices, we must also balance the "reservation costs" and "use effects."

Putting oil prices on the quasi-precision time point to "doing a good job of oil reserves, and correctly predicting the trend of international oil prices is very important. It needs to be bought and sold at an appropriate point in time." An industry insider explained to reporters the "doorway" of oil reserves.

“The best time to increase oil reserves is of course to buy at low prices, but how to determine the trend of oil prices is very difficult.” Zhou Xiujie, researcher of China Investment Advisor Energy Industry believes that the international oil price is changing and difficult to predict. At present, international oil prices are relatively expensive relative to previous prices, but there are also agencies that predict future international oil prices will exceed 150 US dollars / barrel. This way, the current price of oil is not expensive.

“Overall, the oil price is on the upward trend, so the sooner you do oil reserves, the better you do. If you wait until the base is completed and then you enter the oil, the oil price may have already risen. For example, the strategic oil reserve is now The cost is higher than in the past," said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Energy Economic Research Center at Xiamen University.

An oil storage company official told the reporter that according to his understanding, in the past, the country may require that oil be imported below a certain oil price. However, due to the complexity of the international situation, all countries are stepping up their oil reserves, and therefore oil prices will also be considered when the price is close to or slightly lower than the market price.

"In addition, when the country's oil reserves have surpluses or deficiencies, they will also choose to adjust their emissions or recapture them to the market." According to industry insiders, fluctuations in crude oil inventories in some of the larger reserves have also become a factor affecting international oil prices. “For example, the US regularly publishes its crude oil inventories. When the stock is low, the market expects it will make up the inventory, and the oil price will be pushed up, otherwise it will be pulled down. At present, China’s crude oil reserves are not large, so There is also a lack of this ability to affect international crude oil prices."

Usually, a country’s oil reserves include crude oil and refined oil, of which crude oil reserves are the main ones, and oil reserves are often referred to as crude oil reserves. Crude oil reserves are divided into national strategic reserves and corporate commercial reserves. It is reported that at present, these two aspects of the reserve are actively being advanced.

The reporter learned that the national strategic reserve is usually the use of national financial resources to buy crude oil for storage. At present, due to the high level of safety management and the better storage conditions of some oil companies, some qualified companies will be entrusted with operational management.

The corporate commercial reserve refers to the inventory of each oil company. It is mainly built to respond to various emergencies and guarantee market supply. The general inventory design is about 14-20 days. In principle, the inventory of all companies can be counted as a commercial reserve. However, due to the relatively small inventory of private enterprises, the “backbone force” of the company’s commercial reserves is mainly oil companies.

The gap still exists in stages. The majority view is that at present, China's oil reserves are at a primary level, which is equivalent to 30 days of import volume; China plans to increase the national oil reserve capacity to 90 days by 2020.

"As early as 2009, the United States had over 700 million barrels of strategic petroleum reserves, of which commercial crude oil storage reached 350 million barrels, and was used at least for 150 days across the country. Crude oil reserves, including Japan and European countries, exceeded the International Energy Agency. The 90-day requirement. China has a big gap in this regard." Zhou Xiujie said.

In this situation, China has also accelerated the pace of oil reserves in recent years. On December 18, 2007, China's National Petroleum Reserve Center was formally established. The construction and management of the national oil reserve base, the monitoring of changes in supply and demand in the domestic and foreign oil markets, and the collection, rotation, and utilization of strategic petroleum reserves were all conducted by the Center.

The National Strategic Petroleum Reserve Base is also in full swing. In the first phase, four bases in Zhenhai, Zhoushan, Huangdao and Dalian have been put into use, with a total reserve of approximately 14 million tons. The second phase of construction is progressing smoothly and is expected to be fully completed in 2012 with a total reserve capacity of 37.53 million tons. By 2020, it plans to complete all the tasks of establishing a strategic oil reserve with a total reserve capacity of 85 million tons.

It is understood that the selection of China's oil reserve bases generally has three basic conditions: First, it is close to deep-water ports, railway lines, and highway networks, and has superior transportation and logistics conditions; second, it is close to large-scale oil refineries and can be processed at the key moments on the spot. Out of refined oil, for the needs; Third, close to the consumer market, such as China's first-phase construction of four bases are located in the southeast coastal areas with high oil consumption.

In addition, oil reserve bases under construction in China are mostly stored in the form of oil storage tanks. “Building a 100,000-ton oil tank and storing it in oil may require several billion yuan. To increase from the current 30 days to 90 days is equivalent to three times the amount of money. This is a sum of money. A considerable cost!” said one industry insider.

How high is the cost of rationally increasing the reserves of oil, taking into account the cost? It is reported that the cost of oil reserves generally comes from two aspects: First, the international market factors such as oil price fluctuations caused by the purchase of risk, the second is the deterioration of oil products, security issues and other storage risks.

According to some analysts, the first-phase oil strategic reserve was completed at a cost of about US$58/barrel. According to the goal of “to complete 85 million tons or 500 million barrels of reserves by 2020”, according to the cost of the first phase, it will cost US$29 billion to complete 500 million barrels of reserves, or approximately 188.7 billion yuan. According to the current international oil price level, the actual cost will be far more than this.

Maintenance and management costs are not low. Statistics show that between 1976 and 1999, the U.S. government has allocated US$21.2 billion for the establishment of strategic oil reserves, and the annual cost for maintenance and operations alone will require 200 million U.S. dollars, or approximately 0.35 U.S. dollars per barrel year. There is no public data on China's oil reserve management costs. If we estimate the cost according to the United States, after 2020, China's annual oil reserve management fee will reach 175 million U.S. dollars, or approximately 1.1 billion yuan.

"In theory, of course, the more crude oil reserves, the better. Sufficient reserves of crude oil can fully guarantee their own energy security. However, since crude oil reserves require cost, they should formulate appropriate crude oil reserve plans according to their own energy needs," said Zhou Xiujie.

“The pressure to increase oil reserves has always been there and certain petroleum reserves should be carried out. But how much is appropriate, it needs to be analyzed scientifically and meticulously. If you increase oil reserves when oil prices are high, it may be expensive to buy.” China Energy Zhou Dadi, vice chairman of the research association and chairman of the Energy Economics Committee pointed out.

He believes that at present, China's oil reserves are at a level that "can continue to increase by some," but the balance between the cost of storage and the effect of use must be properly handled. "It should be scientifically analyzed what the situation is now and how much crude oil is needed under different circumstances. It cannot be simply a conceptual one. "There are better reserves than no reserves, and more reserves than less reserves," he said.