The Comparative Research Of Petroleum Strategic Reservation Between US And Japan

Petroleum reserve is the vital part of our state energy security. Developed countries have established national strategic reservation of petroleum after struck by oil crisis several times. With the amount of the inputted petroleum rising rapidly, strategic reservation of petroleum has been considered the most effective way to reduce the gap of the petroleum supply. But it's not matched with our strategic petroleum reserve as the big country of oil consume. How to resolve the problem reasonably is one of the most important discussions in our political, theory and academic circles. It has very important meaning not in theory but in practice to give a system discussion of the problem deeply.Petroleum reserve system is composed by governmental forms and the enterprises and nongovernmental organizations. The united of states and Japan are the most representatives. Many of the research about the topic in our country are related to one of the two country, they think the governmental forms have a little difference, the enterprises and nongovernmental forms have big difference .But this paper not only compare and analysis the reservation system in macro level but also compare the SPR of the two countries in micro level. We can give some suggestions to our state SPR construction through the analysis and comparisons.The article is divided into four parts.The first part is to introduce the relative definition of the petroleum reservation, classification and functions , and emphasized to discuss the influence of the strategic oil reserve upon the national economy safety. The petroleum reservation is the effective way to steady supply relation, even suppress the market price, resolve the sudden events and guarantee the economy safety. The petroleum reservation is divided into the strategic petroleum reserve, the business storage and futures storages by the ownership .Among them, the goal of the SPR is to guarantee of economy safety and society stable, and the SPR is invested, owned and controlled directly by the government. The function of the strategic oil reserve not only lie in guarantee the oil supply, the stability oil price, but also have the strategic meaning that it is special. Not only the American and Japan have given many importance to the petroleum reservation. A lot of non- IEA′s nation have discussed to establish the strategic oil reserve. After Arabian nation start the oil embargo to cause the first-time petroleum crisis, the United States, Japanese and other 15 countries matched to establish the international energy organization. The organization strengthens to have already become its own petroleum reservation standard and system through many development of the year. Our country has only signed the understanding memo. We should keep our country up with standard of IEA as far as possible. Prevent the loss caused by oil price rising unsteadily and supply unsuspecting.The second part is to analyze by the time order, in the macro level we analysis the United States and Japan'petroleum reservation system ,the development process of the system and the mechanism of the current systems. The United States and Japan have two difference energy structure and the petroleum supply and demand circumstance ,so they have difference petroleum reservation system. The petroleum of Japan and American have become the most representative two kinds of petroleum reservation .The United States'system is the free market type, its characteristics is the government form and enterprises and nongovernmental form operate independence, and the enterprise petroleum reservation form has the market behavior completely. In the American petroleum reservation system, the capacity of the enterprise storage are more than the governmental reservation'. The government does not rule the duty that how much petroleum reservation capacity the business enterprise should have and not interfere the activity of the reserve and throw of the business enterprise. The government also don't give the funds support. But the mechanism of the governmental reservation of the United States can be generalized to: The government has the petroleum reservation'ownership and decision rights, and the petroleum reservation is operated by market. Japan'petroleum storage system is administered by the government, its characteristics is the main part is the governmental form, the less important part is the civil storage. Japan carries on the petroleum storage in two levels, the governmental forms and the enterprise forms. The Japanese enterprise reservation is formed by petroleum companies which has the duty to reserve oil and two shared petroleum reservation bases .The Japanese government has the power and also has the duty to undertake these companies at the same time. The Japanese government provides the funds and the support on the policies for the petroleum companies. The efficiency of Japan government reservation'management system is low, the operation cost is high. Recent years Japan carry on the reform to establish the Japanese Resources Organization, this organization merge the Metals mineral regiment and regiment of petroleum, taking over all management jobs of the governmental storage, the result of the reform need the further observation.The third part is from the lawmaking, the funds source of the strategic oil reserve and choose the address six micro view aspects to compare the United States and Japanese government strategic petroleum reserve. First we should explicit the construction of the strategic oil reserve is a system engineering, it must be invest huge, choose site strictly, it has long construct period. It closely relative to the national petroleum security and the economy stability, so we must attain the legal system in advance. Both the United States and Japan had lawmaking foundation before start establishing the SPR.The strategic petroleum reserve construction demand a huge sum of funds devotion. If has no funds support, it is impossible to establish the system of petroleum reservation. The same way to collect founds of the two countries'is supported by the government. The differences is the government fund of the United States comes from the finance budget but the Japan has diversified funds sources. Considering the site of the SPR, the United States and Japan has the difference way. The US store the petroleum in salt hole but Japanese adopt many reservation methods. The reservation base of the United States mainly located at Gulf of Mexico, but the strategic petroleum reserve base of Japan presents the well-distributed appearance on the geography, adapted with its diversify reservation way. Therefore the construction cost of the American strategic petroleum reserve lower than Japan. As we compare the release considition, we can find that the United States government interfere directly, but Japan consider to repress the need first, then move the enterprises and nongovernmental storage, use the SPR at the last. Both reservation scales of the countries are according to the IEA standard, and give a deep analysis of their own situation. Each of them decide their own reasonable storage scale. The both country'oil type of SPR is crude oil. The forth part is to analysis the two countries'petroleum reservation system, and get inspiration from them. Based on the analysis ,we discuss our petroleum reservation situation and give some suggestion. Now our country'problem of petroleum security is outstanding, the petroleum strategy reservation of the our country are behind the IEA nations obviously. Although our country started the petroleum strategy storage in the March of 2004,and set up the first strategic petroleum reserve base in October of 2006, our country'petroleum security supply is still rigorous. The paper points out the our country petroleum storage construction should be set up the law in advance, and broaden the patterns of raise funds actively, building up the three-rank management mode that be controlled directly by the government. Then it suggests China should locate the petroleum reserve in reasonable region .Finally, the paper puts forward that China should form our own reserve models and systems of both the governmental strategic petroleum reserve and the private reserve.