The Strategic Research On The Exploration And Development Of Oil And Gas Resources In China

As important energy supply and strategic resources, oil and gas resources are not only concerned with the national economy and social development, but also with the national security. Since China resumed to be one of the petroleum net import countries once again in 1993, the import quantum has increased progressively year by year, the conflicts, which act as a main bottleneck against sustainable development in an economic society,between the supply and demand for oil and gas resources have become more and more serious. In this paper, based on the results from the《New Turn of National Oil and Gas Resources Appraisal in China》,《Strategic Survey and Evaluation to Potential Areas for Petroleum Resources in China》, according to the distribution and discovery tendency of the global oil and gas resources, the author took advantage of related theories on resources management to expound the possibility and necessity of strategy upon the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas resources, and offered some suggestions for political measures to ensure the realization of strategic objects. The detailed research results are as follows.Firstly, the author analyzed the exploration and exploitation, consumption trends of the global petroleum resources in the past decade, concluded that the consumption of the global petroleum, being in the momentum of stability increase, can meet the need; the conflicts for capturing petroleum resources will be intensified on international level, and the situation of petroleum security around Asia Pacific areas will become critical.Secondly, the author has applied the Gauss model to forecast the geological reserves, production and consumption of oil and gas in China by 2020. The author predicted that the verified geological reserves for petroleum in China will increase in a rate of 0.8-1.0 billion tons per year in the coming 15 years,and the verified reserves for gas will be growing rapidly. The petroleum production in China will exceed 0.2 billions around 2010,while the gas production in China will exceed 150 billions cube meters around 2015. Before 2015, the speed of petroleum consumption in China will grow quickly. The"twelfth five-year plan"period will see the biggest gap between supply and demand in gas (ranging from 0.16-0.18 billion tons ), while the natural gas will meet the energy requirements.After 2015, the consumption ofpetroleum will begin to decrease gradually.The natural gas, as a main substitute for petroleum, will exceed by 10% among the consumption structure of primary energy resources,though it`s not sufficient to completely remit the conflicts between supply and demand of oil.Thirdly, according to the results mentioned above, the author brought forward a general guideline for exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in China. The guideline is to tackle key problems in order to achieve the goal of sustainable supply of oil and gas on the basis of developing the internal market stably and expanding the international market. The general object is to meet the annual production requirements ,which will be 0.345 billion tons in oil and 80 billion cubic meters in gas for the"eleventh five-year plan", 0.365 billion tons in oil and 120 billion cubic meters in gas for the"twelfth five-year plan"and 0.355 billion tons in oil and 170 billion cubic meters in gas for the"thirteenth five-year plan".Fourthly, the key potential regions for exploration and development of petroleum are eastern China, midwestern China and adjacent sea areas . As for exploration and development of natural gas, the potential areas are the midwestern China and adjacent sea areas . In the eastern China, midwestern China and adjacent sea areas , the prospective petroleum resources(unproven) will be up to 45.8 billion tons, which account for 86.25 percent of total prospective (unproven) petroleum resources which mainly distributed in the eight great basins such as the Bohai gulf basin . Prospective(unproven) resources for gas will be up to 263 billion cubic meters, which account for 84.46 percent of total prospective (unproven)gas resources, they are mostly conserved in the eight great basins such as the Tarim basin . These regions will be the main base for oil and gas production in China in the coming 15 years.Finally, the object for oil and gas exploration and development overseas should be focused on Russia, the Central Asia , the Caspian Sea, the Middle East, the North Africa and the South America.Strategically,the key regions are Russia, the Central Asia -the Caspian Sea and the North Africa.