Natural gas market reform is imminent

China is the world's largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), with a foreign dependence of 43%. On January 5, the China LNG comprehensive import CIF price Index jointly released by the Global Trade Monitoring and Analysis Center of the General Administration of Customs and the Shanghai Oil and Gas Trading Center showed that from December 27, 2021 to January 2, 2022, China LNG comprehensive import CIF price index was 243.26, an increase of 190.95%. China's gas prices are subject to the policy of "basic gate price + up to 20%", and the high imported natural gas prices form an upside down with the gate price, which brings huge cost pressure to domestic urban fuel enterprises. If domestic and international natural gas prices cannot be linked, it will cause serious harm to the entire natural gas industry chain, so natural gas market reform is imminent.

Industry analysts said that from the perspective of correct transmission of price signals and reasonable allocation of resources, the establishment of an oil and gas trading center will help cultivate the function of natural gas price discovery and cope with the impact of natural gas supply and demand and price fluctuations in the international market.

Speed up the forging of long board and repair of short board

In order to speed up the forging of the long board, make up the short board, and make the oil and gas industry chain bigger, stronger and better, Tianjin has successively issued policies to support it. On January 4, Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone issued Several Opinions on the Development of Bonded Oil and Gas Industry in China (Tianjin) Pilot Free Trade Zone, clearly supporting Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone to carry out oil and gas spot trading in the existing commodity spot exchange that is conducive to the development of the industry and the real economy, and to carry out cooperation with the futures exchange to promote the joint development of the spot market and the futures market. The Futures Daily reporter learned that as early as in April last year, the "Tianjin Comprehensive Pilot Plan for the expansion of the opening up of the Service industry" has clearly proposed to support Tianjin to carry out spot trading of oil and gas in existing trading venues. It can be seen that the commodity spot exchange is entrusted with the important task in the construction of the oil and gas supply, storage and marketing system.

Under the policy dividend, the existing spot exchange in Tianjin is actively promoting the market-oriented construction of oil and gas. According to the reporter, on December 13 last year, the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Commerce officially approved, supporting the Tianjin Bohai Commodity Exchange (hereinafter referred to as the Bourse) to carry out oil and gas spot trading conducive to the development of the industry and the real economy, planning to launch major oil and gas products including liquefied natural gas, pipeline natural gas, gasoline, diesel, fuel oil.

Since the establishment of the National pipeline network Company in 2019, the market-oriented system reform of China's oil and gas "controlling the middle and letting go of both ends" has moved rapidly toward the deep water area. Insiders said that after nearly two years of exploration and practice, the oil and gas field has basically achieved the goal of fair and open infrastructure and diversified market competition subjects, and the continuously expanding scale of oil and gas resource transactions has played a key role in realizing the flexible and efficient allocation of oil and gas resources.

In order to build a large-scale and professional oil and gas trading market, many places in the country are accelerating the layout of oil and gas trading centers. According to incomplete statistics, at present, the country has built Shanghai Oil and gas trading Center, Chongqing oil and gas Trading Center, Zhejiang International Oil and Gas trading Center, North International Oil and gas center and other spot oil and gas trading centers with regional influence. The reporter learned from the "2021 Chongqing Oil and Gas Forum Winter Summit" held in October last year that Tianjin, as an energy hub city of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and even northern China, is actively preparing to build the Tianjin oil and gas trading center, which will echo and complement the advantages of Shanghai, Chongqing and other trading centers, and give play to its own characteristics to achieve efficient allocation of resources. Jointly explore the market-oriented progress of the reform of the oil and gas system, and work together to form a "China price" with international competitiveness.

Innovating oil and gas resource trading models

Under the goal of "dual carbon", the development of oil and gas industry has entered a fast lane. How to help the reform of oil and gas industry chain and effectively release the market vitality of competitive links? Industry insiders generally said that "innovative oil and gas resource trading model" is the focus of the oil and gas trading center.