Saudi Arabia in a Multipolar World: Changing Dynamics by Zakir Hussain

Author:Zakir Hussain [Hussain, Zakir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Middle Eastern, Social Science, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9781317247586
Google: _FT7CwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-14T13:39:09+00:00

Energy requirements as the basis of relations

With the discovery of the Daquing oilfield in Heilongjiang Province in 1959, and later on, at Shengli in Shandong and Dagang in Tianjin, China emerged as a net exporter of oil. In 1973, it exported around 1 million tonnes (MT) of oil to Japan, which peaked to 6.21 MT in 1985 (Guang Pan 2008: 62). However, with a rapidly rising economy, particularly after the economic reform in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping, China’s energy sufficiency has been transformed into energy dependency. Between 1978 and 2000, China’s energy consumption more than doubled, increasing from 57,144 TCE (tonnes of coal equivalent) to 128,000 TCE and the share of oil in the total energy mix correspondingly jumped by around 20 per cent. The turning point came in 1993, when China imported 9.91 MT of crude oil and refined oil products. The import dropped in 1994 and 1995 to 3.30 and 8.75 MT, respectively, only to rapidly rise once again. By 2000, China imported 70 MT of petroleum, which was more than one-third of its oil consumption of 220 MT. By 2003, this figure reached 90 MT, and in 2007, it reached 163 MT, more than 40 per cent of the total consumption. The growing oil consumption in China established Beijing as the second-largest oil-consuming country in the world, surpassing Japan in 2003.

China’s energy picture is presented in the following tables and figures: Table 4.3, the history and prospects of the development of China’s oil industry; Table 4.4, China’s energy reserve, production, consumption and share in the global energy market; Table 4.5, China’s projected demand for oil by sector, 1995–2020; Table 4.6, figures for China’s dependency on the Gulf region for its energy needs for the years 1994–2010; Table 4.7, the ranking of oil exporters to China, 2006–09; Table 4.8, West Asia’s role in China’s growing oil appetite, 1993–2014; and Table 4.9, Saudi Arabia’s growing relative share in China’s oil imports from the Gulf region, 1991–2013. Figure 4.1 presents China’s energy consumption basket by type in 2000–12; Figure 4.2, China’s oil production and consumption figures for 1991–2013; Figure 4.3, China’s crude import by source for 2014; Figure 4.4, China’s projected oil production and import for 2008–30; and Figure 4.5, China’s dependency on the Gulf region for its energy needs for 1991–2010.

By the end of 2010, China had only 2 billion tonnes of proven oil reserves, which is only 1.1 per cent of the global reserve (BP Annual Statistical Report 2011). Although China is a significant oil producer with an output of 202 MT in 2010 – almost 4.06 million barrels per day (mb/d) – the quotient of its self-sufficiency has drastically declined, from 102 per cent in 1993 to 45 per cent in 2010. At the given reserve-to-production (R/P) ratio, its reserves are capable of meeting only ten years of requirement (ibid.). Keeping two decades into account, at the same rate of economic growth, China is projected to import some 60 per cent of its oil and at least 30 per cent of its natural gas by 2020 (World Energy Outlook 1999).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.