Study On The Legal Institutions Of Oilor Petroleum Reserve

As we are well-acknowledged, oil resources are a nonrenewable strategic resource, thesecurity of which not only is associated with the sustainable development of a country’seconomy and with the social security and steadiness of that country, but also has immenserepercussion for the tendency of international political and military development and forglobal economic pattern. Since1993, China has experienced a change from the previous oilexportation to the present oil importation due to the rapid development of China’s economy,the insufficiency of domestic oil reserve, and the backwardness of oil developmenttechnology. By the current global situation, it can be judged that many factors including theunstableness of some areas of the world and the worldwide shortage of resourceful energy callfor China to speed up establishing a sound institution of oil reservation in order to solve theunbalanced problem between the requirement from fast developments in economy and needyoil resources。One of the best solutions to solve the problem caused by oil security has beenbrought about by several developed countries comprising U.S, U.K., France and Japan afteryears’ arduous probe. This solution is to set up a full-scaled legal institution for oil resourcesreserve, which has been established by U.S and U.K., among other developed countries, since1970’s. By employing legal measures to regulate the unbalance between the requirement fromfast developments in economy and needy oil resources, those countries have accomplishedremarkable achievement. Since China is still of the elemental stage in the aspect ofestablishing its full-scaled legal institution for oil resources reserve, and is required immenseendeavors to improve this institution, to fill up its vacancy, and to make in-depth investigationin order to speed up the relevant legislation and accordingly to resolve the problem.To begin with, the thesis delimits some concepts such as “oil reserve” and “the institutionof oil reserve”. The latter refers to the action of guarding against the crisis of oil supply ininternational market, and of consciously restoring certain amount of raw oil at the usual time, in order to guarantee long-term security of the country’s energy resources and its continuoussupply, as well as to deal with emergency like war. Oil reserve consists of the strategic reservecontrolled by government, and the commercial reserve possessed by merchants of sales,merchants of oil-refining, and oil consumers. Base on such a classification of concepts, thethesis makes exposition of the concept “legal institution for oil resources reserve”, and makesanalysis of the urgency and feasibility of such a set of legal institution in China. Furthermore,by adopting analytical and comparative methodology, the thesis makes an introduction ofdeveloped countries’(e.g. U.S, France, Japan and England) legal institutions for oil resourcesreserve before drawing some inspiration from those countries’ practices, so as to make afeasible and beneficial summary in theory and praxis for the advantage of China. The thirdpart of the thesis mainly analyzes the deficiency of the present legal institutions for oilresources reserve in China, and finds out the underlying causes of this deficiency by relatingthe status quo of China’s oil industry, in order to point out the urgency and significance toimprove China legal institution for oil resources reserve. Finally, the thesis, based onsummarizing matured experiences from developed countries and combining with China’sfundamental reality, puts forth the model of oil reserve which fits in with China’s social andeconomic development, and finds out a legal approach that satisfies the status quo of China’soil reserve. Moreover, apart from putting forward suggestions about the legislative idea,positive foundations and mechanism for the purpose of making the “Oil Reserve Act”, thethesis puts the relevant measures to support the implementation of the legal institution for oilresources reserve.