Because the storage, production and consumption of world oil resources are extremely unbalanced geographically, oil-producing countries and consuming countries are mostly separated. Oil resources and oil production are mainly concentrated in a few developing countries with relatively backward economies. Their oil consumption level is low and they are major oil exporters. However, many economically developed countries with relatively scarce oil resources have become prominent oil importers in the world because of their high level of oil consumption and strong refining capacity. Most other developing countries without oil resources are very small oil importers. As a strategic material, oil's huge regional difference between supply and demand led to the unprecedented development of the world oil market when multinational oil companies appeared in the19th century. Since then, with the change of the international oil pattern, the international oil market has shown unique characteristics. Show in:
1) highly monopolized. Compared with other industries, the oil industry has the earliest monopoly, the highest monopoly degree and the largest enterprise scale, resulting in the international oil price has been a monopoly price since 1875. Modern petroleum industry is in a very short period of free competition, only about 15 years, that is, 1859 ~ 1875 years. By the mid-1970s of 19, Rockefeller Group had completed its exclusive monopoly on the oil industry in the United States and the world, and established the world's first oil trust on 1882. Since then, although Nobel Brothers and Royal Dutch/Shell Company Group competed with it, according to the Sherman Antitrust Act passed in 1890, Rockefeller Monopoly Group was reorganized into New Jersey Standard Oil Holding Company, and in1910/,the United States Supreme Court pronounced the dissolution of New Jersey according to the Antitrust Act. However, with the further development of these oil companies, the world oil market has been monopolized by seven oil companies, becoming the largest oil monopoly group in the world, commonly known as the oil "Seven Sisters". These seven oil companies have dominated the world oil market for 45 years. In the early 1970s, after the developing oil-producing countries with the organization of petroleum exporting countries as the main body recovered their oil sovereignty, an oil cartel with the organization of petroleum exporting countries as the main body was formed. After the mid-1980s, due to the changes in the structure of world oil production and trade, the major oil producers in the world, mainly the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, struggled and compromised with western developed countries such as the United States and Britain to form monopoly prices.
2) Strong political and military color. Since 2 1 century, oil has become a strategic material related to the survival and economic development of a country. After World War II, the nature of oil as an important strategic material has been further strengthened, and it has gradually become the main primary energy source in the world, occupying an extremely important position in the economic, political and military life of various countries. The fluctuation of international oil price is bound to become a close concern of governments all over the world. The formulation of energy policies and foreign policies of governments in various countries is often closely combined with oil interests. The Middle East War, the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War all had a great impact on the international oil market. In fact, since the 20th century, the development of the world oil industry and the change of the international oil price have been closely linked with the political, economic, diplomatic and military activities of all countries in the world. Since President George W. Bush took office in the White House, he began to formulate a new energy policy, decided to explore oil in Alaska and other places in a planned way, actively intervened in the competition for energy in the Caspian Sea, promoted energy cooperation with Russia, regarded African oil as "the national strategic goal of the United States", and quickly targeted oil-producing countries such as the Gulf of Guinea, Angola, Nigeria and Gabon. The introduction of these new energy strategies and policies is obviously related to the obvious oil consortium background of the Bush administration, and the deeper reason reflects its major strategic adjustment to maintain the strategic goal of "one superpower dominating the United States" at the beginning of the 20th century. The United States is the largest oil consumer in the world, with an average daily consumption of 20 million barrels per 200/kloc-0. According to the forecast of the US Department of Energy, by 2020, 55% of its current oil demand will depend on imports, which will increase by 1/3. After that, it will continue to increase, while the oil production in the United States will decline 12%. Although the United States flagrantly launched the anti-Saskatchewan war this time, mainly according to the National Security Strategy Report released by the United States last year, it listed "terrorism, mass weapons proliferation and rogue States" as the main threats to its core interests, but it obviously reflected the direction of its energy strategy and concealed its intention of claiming the dominant position in the world energy and maintaining its hegemonic position in the world. That is, by controlling Iraq, the Gulf region, which accounts for 64.5% of the world's proven oil reserves, is controlled, and by controlling Iraq, the right to speak of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in determining oil prices and share allocation is obtained, so that the control rights of the International Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are in their hands.
Of course, any market is bound by the basic laws of market economy. The mechanism of supply and demand and competition in the international oil market is still playing a role, and the price will change to a certain extent with the changes of these factors, thus further affecting the international oil market.
Second, the trend of international oil and gas trade
1. Direction of international oil trade
In recent years, oil trade has been active, and the trade volume has increased steadily, with an average annual growth rate of 3%. As can be seen from Figure 2-2 and Figure 2-3, the main suppliers of world oil trade in 1995 are the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Central and South America, among which the Middle East accounts for 25% of world oil exports, North Africa for 4% and other countries for 7 1%, but by 2020, the Middle East will be the largest supplier of world oil trade. North Africa will remain unchanged, while oil trade in other parts of the world will drop to 37%. That is to say, around 2020, the Middle East will become the most important oil supply region in the world, and it will also occupy a very important position in world geopolitics, and it will surely become one of the hottest regions contested by all countries in the world. North America, Asia-Pacific and Western Europe are the regions that import the most oil in the world (Figure 2-4). Generally speaking, North America mainly imports oil from Central and South America, the Middle East and Africa. Oil in the Asia-Pacific region is mainly imported from the Middle East and Africa; Western Europe's oil is mainly imported from OPEC countries in the Middle East and Africa.
Figure 2-2 1995 Comparison of Middle East oil exports with those of other countries in the world
(According to Information Center of Ministry of Land and Resources, 2000)
Figure 2-3 Comparison of Oil Exports between the Middle East and Other Countries in the World in 2020
(According to Information Center of Ministry of Land and Resources, 2000)
Figure 2-4 Proportion of crude oil imports in various regions of the world
(According to Information Center of Ministry of Land and Resources, 2000)
2. International oil trade price
Since 1970s, the international oil price has been turbulent, from the beginning of 1973 oil embargo to 1979 the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) drastically raised the oil price, which led to two sharp rises in 1970s and reached the peak of nearly $40/barrel at 1980. Subsequently, due to the substantial increase in oil production in non-OPEC countries, OPEC members, Norway and the United Kingdom reduced oil prices, which kept the oil price in a downward trend in the 1980s. 1990 Gulf War once raised the oil price to $30/barrel. During the period of 1997, due to the increasing oil production of OPEC member countries and the world, and the impact of the Asian financial crisis, oil prices continued to fall, and oil prices fell to the bottom at 1998. From 65438 to 0999, the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reached an agreement to reduce production and protect prices, and the Asian economy began to recover, driving the oil price to rebound. In 2000, stimulated by the global economic strength and the retaliatory speculation of international large-scale speculative funds on crude oil futures prices, oil prices soared. The 2001"September 1 1" incident aggravated the recession of the American economy, affected the development of the world economy, caused a drop in the demand for oil, mainly aviation kerosene, and led to a drop in oil prices, which once fell to 16 USD in mid-October. In February 2002, the effect of joint production reduction by OPEC and non-OPEC began to appear. After March, the international oil price began to return to the OPEC price range (22-28 USD/barrel). With the increasingly tense situation in the United States and Iraq, oil prices began to break through the upper limit of the price band from September to June. The US WTI oil price once exceeded $30/barrel, and Brent oil price also exceeded $29/barrel several times. By the end of 2002 10, the average price of Brent crude oil has reached $24.65/barrel since 2002, exceeding the annual average of $24.46/barrel in 200/kloc-0 (Dan Weiguo, 2002). In 2002, due to the tension in the Middle East, especially the shadow of the US-Iraq war and frequent terrorist incidents, the price of crude oil rose, resulting in a "premium" of about $5 per barrel (International Petroleum Economic Editorial Department, 2003). In the future, strengthening energy cooperation between Russia and the United States will increase Russia's competitiveness against Saudi Arabia in the world oil market and further restrict the influence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on international oil prices. But in the near future, Saudi Arabia's position in the oil market remains unshakable, because its remaining oil is still as high as 2.5 million barrels per day, while Russia's oil production and export volume have reached the maximum (International Petroleum Economic Editorial Department, 2003).
The long-term trend of international oil prices is mainly influenced by the relationship between world oil supply and demand. It is predicted that the world oil supply and demand will be basically balanced before 20 10, and the oil price will also be basically balanced. However, due to the impact of cost and inflation, there may also be a small increase. Excluding the collective intervention of OPEC countries, according to the forecast of the US Department of Energy, the price of West Texas Intermediate oil in 20 10 may be around $28/barrel. After 20 10, conventional oil production began to decline, because the peak year of world oil production has passed. If energy-saving technologies are not greatly improved and alternative energy sources are not broken, international oil prices will accelerate.
3. Foreign natural gas price and pricing mechanism
Foreign natural gas prices are generally divided into three categories (Hu Aolin, 2002), that is, according to the production, supply and sales links of natural gas, they are divided into wellhead prices, city gate station prices and end-user prices. Wellhead price is the price that the natural gas producer delivers to the pipeline transportation company at the delivery point of natural gas. For the natural gas produced in offshore gas fields, it is the price that reaches the shore. The border price of imported natural gas in Europe and other countries can be regarded as the wellhead price. The gate station price is the price at which the natural gas pipeline company transports the purchased natural gas to a gate station and sells it to the city gas distribution company. The end-user price is the price paid by the end-user to buy natural gas from the pipeline company, including the commodity price of natural gas itself and all service fees delivered to the user. Due to different intermediate links and service requirements, different users have different natural gas consumption prices.
Foreign natural gas prices generally have the following characteristics: first, they are linked to international oil prices, that is, changes in international crude oil prices will inevitably lead to fluctuations in natural gas prices; Second, it is related to the country's resource richness. Countries with abundant natural gas resources have lower natural gas prices. Third, it is influenced by the degree of economic development and social needs. Western Europe is one of the most active regions in the global economy. At present, Western Europe has the highest average consumption price of natural gas in the world. In addition, the differences in natural gas resources and transportation distance of imported natural gas in neighboring countries will also cause price differences.
The pricing mechanism of foreign natural gas is closely related to the system of natural gas market, which can be divided into monopoly and competition. Table 2- 1 lists the natural gas pricing methods under different market systems. Monopoly pricing is because pipeline companies monopolize the transportation and sales of natural gas, and its pricing principle is cost plus profit. Monopoly pricing is dominant in the world, and monopoly is still dominant in Europe. Competitive pricing is divided into tube-to-tube competition and gas-to-gas competition. The competition between pipelines is to allow more than two pipeline companies to transport natural gas to the same regional market and use their respective pipelines to compete for users; Gas-to-gas competition means that third parties (such as large industrial users, power plants and local distribution companies) have the right or can use the gas transmission and related services of pipeline companies to pay for their own natural gas. The entry of the third party broke the monopoly of gas companies on the bundled services of gas purchase, gas transmission and gas distribution, so there was competition among natural gas suppliers. Competitive pricing of natural gas is only implemented in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Britain, and many countries are constantly taking measures to open their markets and introduce competition.
Table 2- 1 Natural gas pricing methods under different market structures
(According to Hu Aolin, 2002)