The Legal Regulation Of Private Capital's Access To Petroleum Reserve

Facing the situation of high oil price in the worldwide market, the domestic petroleum consumer boom, the rising dependence on import, it is of great economic value and strategic significance to establish the petroleum reserve in China. Considering that petroleum reserve is a lengthy and huge-investment project, it will impose a heavy fiscal burden if Chinese government intends to fulfill the project merely by its own efforts. Encouraging the private capital to invest in the petroleum reserve is an effective way to release the pressure on the governmental reserve and may quickly strengthen the national petroleum reserve ability. On the other hand, it may revitalize the private capital so as to increase the benefit of the private petroleum enterprise. In a way, it is a win-win choice both for government and private capital, which has been practiced for many years in foreign developed countries while be a new attempt in China to improve the national reservation of petroleum.The petroleum reserve project in China is just on the threshold. It is vacant in legal construction and lack of legal study. This thesis will analyze the theoretical basis of private capital's access into the petroleum reserve, explore the current legal system of petroleum, summarize the experience in petroleum reserve legislation in the foreign countries and put forward the basic principles and legal advices on how to regulate the petroleum reserve of private capital.The first part of the thesis begins with the definition and classification of the petroleum reserve, and then illustrates its significant influence upon the national economic safety and social stability. There are several problems constituting a threat to Chinese petroleum security, including the high oil price, the huge gap of oil demand and supply, the high dependence rate of oil import and the excessive centralization of import suppliers. Therefore, establishing the petroleum reserve system is a significant choice for China to stabilize the oil demand and supply, cope with the emergency and strengthen the economic safety. In view of the development of Chinese petroleum reserve, we may state that if China intends to establish the petroleum reservation solely by government without the non-government contributions, it will impose a fiscal burden on government and fail to build the petroleum reservation timely and efficiently. In this sense, China should admit the private capital into the project of petroleum reserve.The second part is to discuss the theoretical basis and current situation of private capital in petroleum reserve. Theories of corporate social responsibilities, market competence, cost efficiency and international effects offer the theoretical basis on private capital's access into the petroleum reserve. The access of private capital into petroleum reserve will help promote the construction of petroleum reserve and raise the petroleum reserve efficiency. The development of private oil corporations in China include three phases: rapidly developing, restricting by national policy, adjusting and restructure. By now the private oil corporations in China is still an important economic subject with strong capital strength and storage capacity. In recent years, Chinese government increasingly pays attention to the role of the non-government power in the development of national economy and one of the measures is to encourage the investment of private capital into the petroleum reserve. However, it is still a macroeconomic policy to encourage private capital to participate in the project of petroleum and lacks of detailed regulations. It is urgent to set up a management system of petroleum reserve, enact the relevant regulations and definite the rights and obligations of each administrative department and subject of petroleum reserve.The third part is to analyze the current legal system of Chinese petroleum reserve and point out the existing problem. The current legal system of oil and gas is composed of as the dominant law, a series of administrative regulations as main part and plentiful policy documents as supplement. The current legal system lacks of specializing in regulating the petroleum reserve and it has several problems including: the inadequate system without basic law and some important oil-relevant law; low-sequential legal effect of current regulations and massive over-authority documents; lag of legislation and inefficient concrete operation; lack of legislation plan; the deficiency of legal enforcement. All these problems will weaken the guarantee role of law in the petroleum reserve and therefore impede the sustainability of the petroleum reserve program. It is necessary for China to study from the advanced legislative experience of foreign countries and improve our legal system of petroleum reserve..The forth part is to compare the legal system of petroleum reserve in the United States (government reserve), Japan (government-and-nongovernment reserve) and Germany (agency reserve), and emphasized to summarize the experience in utilizing the power of the private capital in these foreign countries, which may provide reference for china in the same area. The experience and reference includes: formulate and revise the regulations of petroleum reserve; exploit the effects of non-government power and private capital to form a diversity of investors in petroleum reserve; clearly define the release condition and procedure of petroleum reserve.;set up a decision-making and supervision mechanism featuring well-defined and efficient; implement fiscal and tax preferential policies to encourage and guide enthusiasm of the private capital.The fifth part is to propose the basic principles and legal advices on regulating the private capital in the petroleum reserve. To regulate the activities of private capital in petroleum reserve, Chinese government should follow three principles: the principle of safe to guarantee the national energy security, the principle of fairness to protect the legal rights and interests of private capital, the principle of marketing to combine the effects of macro-control and market regulation. To regulate the activities of private capital in petroleum reserve, the law should clearly define the market access of private capital into the petroleum reserve, including the essential standard and the procedure; legislatively define the ownership, right of release and usufruct of the petroleum products and the storage facilities; establish a motivate mechanism, including the fiscal encouragement, tax preference and policy-guiding measures, to guide and encourage the private capital to invest the petroleum reserve project; set up well-defined organizations to make macro policy and supervise the petroleum reserve; build a system for reporting the petroleum reserve situation and a mechanism for energy statistics to ensure the supervision and guidance of government on petroleum reserve. On that basis, we may ensure that the private petroleum reservation proceeds under the legal regulation and legal regulation will play a positive role in guaranteeing the national oil safety and energy security.