On The Regulation Of Oil And Natural Gas Pipeline In China-from The Perspective Of Environmental Protection

Oil and natural gas, as the major energy sources, is very important for the national energy strategy. As we all know, many regional clashes in Iraq, Libya, all have a significant association with the oil and gas and petroleum. Energy security means a lot to national security, economic progress and social stability, even to the ordinary people's daily life. Therefore, the safety of pipeline for oil and gas transportation, as well as its environmental conditions, becomes a national and community issue.Recent years, China's rapid economic development is companied by the ever-increasing demand on energy, which lead to the progress in energy transportation, such as oil and gas pipelines. It is been estimated that about 70% of oil and 99% of natural gas are to be transported by pipelines. But as every coin has two sides, the risk of oil and gas pipeline is still been underestimated, such as explosion and leakage etc. It has been many years for the government and whole society aging the significant of risk and necessity to exert regulations for the oil and gas pipelines. If accidents happened to the pipelines, the outcome may reach very serious damage. For example, in 2010 the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil pipeline leak pollution and land-based oil pipeline fire explosion accident in Dalian. Thus, oil and gas pipelines need to be regulated and protected for the sake of human health and property wealth as well as the bio-security. However, our legislations and other formal arrangement status quo is very weak and outdated for reality's demand, for there is very few environmental rules and risk management requirements in the regulations. We, the society and the government, must advance the law and regulations to assure that risk and adverse-impact on the environment of the oil and gas pipelines is minimized and diminished. Only in this way, can we achieve a sustainable development.This paper makes its focus on the regulation on oil and gas pipelines in China, especially the current situation, shortage and improvement from the environmental-related concerns. Firstly, an introduction of the conditions of the oil and gas pipeline is been referred, followed by the analysis of categorization and characteristics, the oil and gas pipeline engineering design and the impact on environmental factors; Then, after exploring the current China's environmental protection regulations of oil and gas pipeline, the author pointed out its shortcomings. Finally, this paper will study out some environmental protection improvement advices on the basis of the experience of western legal system.