Study On Import Safety Of Natural Gas In China

Nowadays, energy supply has become increasingly tight in the world together with various serious issues like climate change, air quality deterioration and haze occurrence. Thus, it’s of significance for developed and developing countries to develop and utilize efficient environment-friendly energy while guaranteeing continuous energy supply. In this circumstances, natural gas has gained more and more attention and emphasis due to its advantages of efficiency, cleanliness and extensive applications. International Energy Association (IEA) indicates that the world is stepping into natural gas "Golden Era".China has turned from an insufficient natural gas supplier in2007into a natural gas net importer in2010. Additionally, China is in an important stage of accelerating structure transformation of the economy together with the problem of declining air quality. Hence, our demand for natural gas is progressively increasing and the degree of dependence on import is continuously going up. Given this discussion, a study on natural gas import security is of great importance to safeguard sustainable and effective supply of energy. Based on literature research, this paper makes a systematic evaluation and research on natural gas import security of our country by combining theoretical&empirical study and qualitative&quantitative research. The major contents and conclusions are as below:(1) According to the analysis of Chinese natural gas import situation and the statistics of natural gas exporter by energy statistical yearbook of British Petroleum (BP), the first eight countries from which our country import and the three potential countries to which our countries export are chose as research objects of this paper.(2) In aspect of import resource:potential analysis, economic risk assessment and political risk index of our importers are evaluated by modeling to obtain the risk state of the eleven importers. In aspect of import route:composite factors of transport routes, harbor stability, geopolitical factors and influence of Chinese military force on the routes are analyzed to derive the risk states of each import routes. In aspect of import price:the impacts of international crude oil price and world economic index on import price of natural gas are discussed to find that the former factor is negative while the latter is positive. Besides, the economical efficiency of China natural gas import price is evaluated from the point of geopolitics and military influences et al.(3) Last, relevant suggestions and measures for guaranteeing natural gas import security are proposed based on the above discussion. They include:carrying out positive energy foreign policy by efficient diplomacy, enhancing the cooperation with importers by promoting comprehensive national strength, improving Chinese energy position by increasing military force, diversifying energy importers, developing new import routes, launching superpower games to gain more economical import price.