The modern petroleum industry was founded in the United States. On August 27, 1859, American E.L. Drake (Edwin L. Drake) drilled the world's first modern industrial oil well in Pennsylvania. This marks the beginning of mineral oil replacing animal and vegetable oils. Since then, the modern petroleum industry has developed rapidly from exploration, mining, refining and processing, storage and transportation to sales. By the end of the 19th century, the oil discovered in the United States had doubled, Russia discovered oil fields with rich reserves in the Caucasus, and countries such as Venezuela, Iran, Romania, and Indonesia also began to produce large amounts of crude oil. From the perspective of historical development, the global petroleum industry has always been characterized by international cooperation. However, international petroleum cooperation has experienced various contradictions between investing countries and host countries. The key to these contradictions lies in the struggle for interests.

1. History of the Development of International Petroleum Cooperation

There is still no precise definition of what international petroleum cooperation is. However, according to people’s experience, international petroleum cooperation should be Petroleum economic cooperation activities between different sovereign countries are different from general international trade. In this kind of collaboration, the main body of the cooperation is a multinational oil company that represents the image and interests of a sovereign country. In the cross-border business operations of a multinational oil company, there should be collaboration in the field of cross-border production factors. The collaboration is relatively long-term. Of course, Also includes coordination of international petroleum policy. From this understanding, the history of international petroleum cooperation can be divided into two major periods. The former period refers to before the establishment of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, OPEC) in the 1970s. During this period, cooperation between investing countries and There is an unequal cooperative relationship between host countries; only after the 1970s did international oil cooperation really get on the right track. For these two periods, we can divide international petroleum cooperation into four stages. From these four stages, we can understand the interest relationships of countries around the world in international petroleum cooperation, which indirectly affects a country's oil and gas security.

1. The stage when Western multinational oil companies carve up and monopolize the world's oil industry (1900-1945)

Due to the increasing role of oil in the military and economy, Western powers began to carve up and monopolize the world's oil industry before World War II. The plundering of oil and gas resource countries began. First, the rise of American multinational oil companies has led to the rapid development of the multinational oil industry. At the same time, countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands also developed transnational oil industries through their governments' colonial policies. The United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and other countries have carried out drilling and development activities in Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina and other regions in South America, as well as in Persia (now Iran), Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other regions in the Middle East, and have obtained large amounts of oil concessions. land and mining rights, and plunder the oil of resource-exploiting countries. In this stage of international petroleum cooperation, Western multinational companies obtained the rights to exploit and profit from the oil resources of oil-producing countries through the concession system under unequal conditions and only paid a small amount of mining area royalties. For example, the international cartel agreement signed in July 1928 by the Western powers to carve up the oil resources in the Middle East - the "Red Line Agreement" and the international cartel agreement signed in September 1928 by the Western powers to carve up and monopolize the world's oil resources, production, prices and markets. etc., are all the wishes of Western multinational companies. Obviously, this kind of international oil economic agreement cannot be called international oil cooperation.

2. The United States became the dominant oil-producing country in the world (1946-1959)

After World War II, due to the shift of the oil export center from the Gulf of Mexico to the Persian Gulf region , the United States' dominance in world oil supply began to disappear, and it began to rely on Middle East crude oil. Relying on its huge post-war strength, the United States tore up the "Red Line Agreement" and replaced Britain's oil dominance in the Middle East. By 1954, there was no oil-producing country in the Middle East that was not controlled by American multinational oil companies. At the same time, with the rise of the national liberation movement after World War II, the governments of many oil-producing countries have demanded economic independence after political independence. These countries have successively put forward the slogan of nationalizing oil companies. But these struggles have not placed these countries on an equal footing in international oil-economic relations.

At this stage, the countries in the Middle East are still in a dominated position, and oil resources are occupied almost free of charge by the United States and other countries.

3. The establishment of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (1960-1969)

In the 1950s, due to the large-scale influx of many independent oil companies into the Middle East, oil production and supply increased sharply, resulting in Crude oil prices in the international market continued to fall. In March 1959, the United States decided to impose oil import quotas to protect the interests of domestic oil producers. This decision pushed oil prices further into the abyss in the international oil market. In February 1959, in order to pass on the crisis, the international oil monopoly capital forcibly lowered the price of crude oil by 9%, causing huge tax losses to the oil-producing countries. It is estimated that this price reduction cost oil-producing countries US$476 million in lost revenue. In September 1960, Venezuela, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq organized the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, abbreviated as OPEC in Chinese) in order to resist the actions of Western oil companies to forcefully lower crude oil prices. Article 2 of the OPEC Charter stipulates: The main objective of the organization is to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of member states and to determine the most effective means to safeguard their interests individually or collectively. The establishment of OPEC marked the beginning of the third world oil-producing countries' struggle for equal economic relations and joint actions to boycott Western multinational oil companies. At this stage, OPEC's struggle was mainly a defensive struggle against multinational oil companies to lower oil prices, change concession fees, cancel sales subsidies, and take back unexploited oil concessions.

4. Period of International Petroleum Cooperation (1970 to present)

After the 1970s, OPEC’s struggle shifted from defensive to offensive. The content of the struggle revolved around raising crude oil prices, Recover sovereignty over oil resources, etc. The oil-producing countries regained their oil sovereignty mainly by gradually increasing the oil resource countries' shares in foreign-funded operating companies and nationalizing them to gradually gain control and dominance of their own oil resources. In this case, Western countries had to change their past policies. Western countries agreed to sign some new oil cooperation agreements and contracts with third world oil-producing countries on the basis of new equality and mutual benefit, such as agreements to establish joint ventures, product sharing contracts, contracts to provide services, and contracts under new conditions. Concession agreements, etc., provide one's own technology, capital and labor services to help the resource country explore and extract oil, in exchange for the resource country giving a part of the oil or other benefits.

2. Main types of international petroleum cooperation

After decades of development, international petroleum cooperation has gradually formed a relatively standardized cooperation model. Generally speaking, there are the following types of international petroleum cooperation:

First, international petroleum credit cooperation. Including foreign government credit, international financial organization credit, export credit, commercial bank credit, mixed credit, absorbing foreign deposits, issuance of international bonds and international leasing credit, etc.

Second, international oil investment cooperation. It mainly refers to direct investment in the field of oil production, including investment in oil introduced by one country from other countries and investment in oil in other countries. The specific methods include concession system, joint operation, product sharing, etc.

Third, international oil service cooperation. It mainly includes international petroleum project contracting, labor import and export, and international consulting.

Fourth, international petroleum science and technology cooperation. Including paid transfer and free transfer. Paid transfer mainly refers to international petroleum technology transfer. The methods adopted include trading of petroleum equipment or related equipment hardware with the nature of technology transfer, patent, proprietary technology or trademark licensing trade, etc. Free transfers generally appear in the form of petroleum science and technology exchanges. The specific methods include exchanging petroleum science and technology information, materials, and instrument samples, holding special seminars, expert exchange and expert technology teaching, joint research, design and testing, and establishment of Joint scientific research institutions, etc.

Fifth, international petroleum information and management cooperation. International petroleum information cooperation mainly refers to the exchange and exchange of international petroleum economic information.

Specific methods of international petroleum management cooperation include hiring foreign management consulting agencies and management experts to give lectures and provide petroleum operation and management consultation, cooperate in joint management, exchange management experience and information, and hold international petroleum operation and management workshops.

Sixth, international oil economic assistance. There are mainly financial, material and technical assistance methods.

Seventh, international petroleum economic policy coordination and cooperation. Including coordination by international petroleum economic organizations of the United Nations system, coordination by government summits and mutual visits, as well as coordination by international petroleum industry organizations and other relevant international energy economic organizations.

The above various forms of cooperation all affect the world's oil and gas supply issues in a certain way. When countries around the world propose to use two resources and two markets to make full use of the opportunities of economic globalization, countries are choosing The type of petroleum cooperation needs to be determined based on its own resources, location, technology, economy, politics, society and other environmental conditions. Otherwise, the characteristics of oil such as high technology, high investment, and high risks will lead to the failure of investing countries. China began to go global in 1993. It initially chose an old oil field in Peru that had been developed for more than 100 years by multinational oil companies. The oil field production was nearly exhausted, with a daily output of only 100 barrels. However, we made a breakthrough here. The region's historically high-yield oil wells have made achievements unimaginable to many foreigners. China has also made outstanding achievements in Venezuela. In less than three years, it increased the daily output of an oil field that has been exploited for more than 40 years from 10,000 barrels to 30,000 barrels. The operating cost is the lowest among all foreign companies. . In Sudan, the Chinese team built an oil field with an annual output of 10 million tons in less than two and a half years, and also built a 1,506-kilometer-long oil pipeline with a diameter of 28 inches, etc., which transformed China's oil industry from "to world" to "integrating into the world". These achievements are due to various factors. However, in our foreign oil cooperation, we correctly analyze the international environment, seize opportunities, and appropriately choose the cooperation method of equality, mutual benefit, and win-win. This is why my country’s foreign oil cooperation has been so successful. key factors.

3. Characteristics and trends of international oil cooperation since the 1990s

According to data (Zhiyuan et al., 2002), the world’s major multinational oil companies control more than 30% of the world’s The output value of the petroleum industry, its trade volume and direct investment amount exceed two-thirds of the world's, and it has more than 80% of the world's advanced petroleum and petrochemical technologies. After a new round of mergers and reorganizations, the world's top four oil companies ExxonMobil, Anglo-Dutch Shell, BP and Total Fina Elf accounted for 32% of the world's petroleum product sales and 19% of the world's refining capacity. Since the 1990s, especially in recent years, the capital expenditure of the oil and natural gas department of international oil and gas companies has ranked first among all company departments, with a ratio as high as more than 80%, and some companies have even reached more than 90%. In the oil and gas department, exploration and development expenditures Accounts for the vast majority of expenditures in the entire oil and gas sector. From the perspective of investment direction, their cross-border investments are mainly conducted among developed countries. However, in order to further optimize the allocation of world resources, compete for global markets, and seek profit growth points in the new century, multinational oil companies, while consolidating the basically saturated European and American markets, have shifted their development focus to areas where the oil industry is booming and market demand is strong. Emerging markets mainly in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, China and Australia; the CIS and the North Sea region in Europe; Nigeria, Angola and Egypt in Africa; Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil in Latin America, etc. In terms of investment, although foreign investment from Middle Eastern countries and oil-producing countries in other regions is also increasing, the Far East/Pacific Basin and the former Soviet Union are the regions with the greatest potential in the world, followed by Latin America. The main reasons are:

First, the Middle East has been in constant war for many years, and developed countries have shifted their investments to safer areas.

Second, the Pre-Caspian region is recognized by the world as being rich in oil resources, and the Pre-Caspian region is likely to become the second Middle East region.

In order to obtain as much oil and gas supply as possible and to compress Russia's strategic development space, NATO, led by the United States, has used diplomatic, military and political means, and based on its abundant funds, to enter Central Asia and the Pre-Caspian region.

Thirdly, due to China's sustained rapid and healthy economic development and strong demand for petroleum products, as well as the very good petroleum geological conditions in the South China Sea, many oil-forming conditions have formed the best match here and exerted great influence. With the best oil production effect, China has gradually become one of the hot spots for investment by multinational oil companies. According to statistics, almost all of the top 500 large petroleum and petrochemical companies in the world ranked by Fortune magazine have invested and built factories in China, and some companies have begun to take shape in their business development in China (Table 2-2). BP is currently one of the largest multinational companies investing in my country's oil and gas field. The total cumulative investment has reached 4.5 billion US dollars, and it has 36 joint venture gas stations and multiple natural gas joint ventures in China. Shell's total investment in China reaches US$1.7 billion, of which its investment in oil exploration exceeds US$600 million, and it owns 20 enterprises and 40 gas stations. At the same time, almost all of the world's top 100 chemical companies have invested in China, including BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Akzo-Nobel, DSM, Engelhard and other well-known European and American multinational companies.

Table 2-2 Investment status of large multinational petroleum and petrochemical companies in China

(According to Liu Jianping, 2003)

Fourth, Africa, especially North Africa Africa is very rich in oil and gas resources. In recent years, the political situation of African countries has continued to stabilize, and the economy has gradually recovered and developed. Many Western oil companies also have a long history of existence in Africa. From a geographical point of view, North Africa is very close to Southern Europe. Southern Europe has a huge dependence on North Africa's oil and gas, making Africa increasingly attractive to Western investment.

However, with the further consumption of global oil and gas resources, the uncertainty of oil in the Pre-Caspian region and the South China Sea, the pace of exploration and development has slowed down, and the oil and gas reserve-production ratio has dropped sharply. The oil trade will account for an increasing share of the world oil trade. World economic development and oil consumption are increasingly dependent on the Middle East, and the geopolitics of the Middle East is becoming more and more important.