The oil crisis in the early 1970s brought a huge impact on the world oil market, and the sharp fluctuation of oil prices directly led to the emergence of oil futures. After the birth of oil futures, its trading volume has been growing rapidly, surpassing metal futures, and it is an important part of the international futures market. Crude oil futures are the most important oil futures. There are four important crude oil futures contracts in the world: NYMEX's light sweet crude oil futures contract West Texas Intermediate, London International Petroleum Exchange (IPE)' s Brent crude oil futures and SIMEX's Dubai acid crude oil futures. Other oil futures include heating oil, fuel oil, gasoline and light diesel oil. NYMEX West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures specifications are 65,438+0,000 barrels per lot, and the quotation unit is USD/barrel. After its launch, this contract is the most successful commodity futures contract in history, and its transaction price has become the focus of international oil market.

As of June 2002, 65438+ 10 1, the estimated proven oil reserves in the world are1413.09 million tons, and Saudi Arabia ranks first in the world. In 20001year, the global crude oil output was 365,438+800 million tons, and the top five were Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States, China and Norway. Among them, the output of Russian and China increased by 9% and 1.8% respectively. Russian has replaced Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer, while China has risen from the fifth place last year to the fourth place. Oil is the "blood" of industrial production and an important strategic material. In order to safeguard their own interests, the world oil-producing countries established the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in September 1960. 13 member countries: Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, Ecuador, Canada, Indonesia and Libya. Headquartered in Vienna, Austria. The oil reserves of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries recently reached 1. 1.33 billion tons, accounting for nearly 80% of the world's total reserves.

China's oil demand is growing rapidly. Since 1993, it has become a net importer of oil, importing more than 70 million tons of crude oil every year and spending nearly 20 billion US dollars. The year before last, due to the rising international oil price, it paid billions of dollars more. At present, China's oil supply, demand and price are increasingly dependent on foreign resources, and the risks it bears are also increasing. Domestic enterprises have a high voice for resuming oil futures trading. In fact, China has made a successful exploration in the field of oil futures. At the beginning of 1993, the former Shanghai Petroleum Exchange successfully launched oil futures trading. Later, the former South China Commodity Futures Exchange, the former Beijing Petroleum Exchange and the former Beijing Commodity Exchange successively launched oil futures. Among them, the former Shanghai Petroleum Exchange has the largest trading volume and relatively standardized operation, accounting for about 70% of the national oil futures market share. Its standard futures contracts mainly include Daqing crude oil, 90# gasoline, 0# diesel oil and 250# fuel oil. By the beginning of 1994, the daily average trading volume of the former Shanghai Petroleum Exchange had surpassed that of the Singapore International Financial Exchange (SIMEX), the third largest energy futures market in the world, which had a great impact at home and abroad. China's successful practice in the field of oil futures in the past provides valuable experience for future oil futures trading.