The outlook for China's climate change strategies - beyond Copenhagen
As we look forward to the Climate Change Summit to be held in Copenhagen between 7th and 18th December 2009, expectations fluctuate from week to week. Opinions vary from those which see it as an empty gesture likely to result in few commitments and little action, to those which hail ...
Published : 2009-11-11 08:52:00

China's overseas oil investments: host country perspectives
The months of September and October saw a sudden surge in overseas investment activity by China’s national oil companies (NOCs). CNPC International obtained the right to 70% participation in the giant South Azadegan  field in Iran, with its reported reserves of 42 billion barrels. The same company also reached agreement ...
Published : 2009-10-12 16:07:00

China's wind power: size is not everything, but it helps
With the Copenhagen climate change meeting getting closer, China’s  recent progress in constraining the growth of its carbon emissions is coming under close scrutiny. Recent assessments suggest that steps taken in the last four to five years are indeed starting to take ...
Published : 2009-09-16 14:46:00

Don't bring on the clowns. Credible leadership is essential to building a low-carbon economy
Crises or impending crises bring out the best and the worst in individuals, groups and societies. More importantly, they highlight the strengths and weaknesses of leaders. Crises require leaders to understand and to communicate clearly the nature of the threats and of the choices facing society: the nature of the ...
Published : 2009-08-13 12:18:43

China's oil companies secure access to Middle East oil and gas reserves
The first few months of 2009 were notable for the large loans made by China’s government to Russia, Brazil and Venezuela in return for promises of oil supply. In contrast, China’s national oil companies appeared to be rather passive, despite the low oil price and the consequent attractive value of ...
Published : 2009-07-13 09:13:00

China raises pump prices again: what effect on oil demand in the transport sector?
On 1st June 2009 China’s government raised the benchmark pump prices for gasoline and diesel by 6% and 7% respectively. This follows an increase in jet fuel prices of 13% in mid May, and comes after earlier increases in gasoline and diesel prices of about 13% in late March. Pump ...
Published : 2009-06-12 10:23:29

China's coal and electrical power: cleaner is still dirtier
The story of China’s energy sector over the last few years has really been two stories. On the one hand, commercialisation, investment and the application of better technologies have resulted in a massive growth of the capacity of the sector to deliver energy to where it is needed and in ...
Published : 2009-05-14 12:28:00

China's ability to influence world oil markets grows, as it builds strategic oil stocks and boosts refinery output and capacity
To be cash-rich in a cash-poor, low-price world, is a huge advantage. China has realised this, and is taking advantage of its relative strength in the extractive industries. As discussed in last month’s column, its government has been making generous loans and its companies have been making aggressive bids for ...
Published : 2009-04-08 11:13:07

Is China becoming the banker for the international resources sector?
In response to the question “Why do you rob banks?”, the U.S. bank robber, Willie Sutton, is reputed to have answered “Because that’s where the money is”. In the same way cash-poor, resource-rich countries and resource companies are today turning to China, because that’s where the money is.  In my ...
Published : 2009-03-13 16:25:00

China and Russia: is CNPC about to ride again to the rescue of Rosneft?
The energy relationship between China and Russia is increasingly becoming a “spectator sport” in the sense that spectators gain more interest from the relationship than the parties themselves. Despite more than ten years of rhetoric from both sides about the need and desirability for collaboration in the field of energy, ...
Published : 2009-02-12 12:38:00

China's higher fuel taxes: a step forward or more headaches for the government?
After fifteen years of debate, China’s government decided in December 2008 to raise significantly the taxes on oil products. The increases came into effect on 1st January 2009 and apply to the full range of oil products from lubricant oil and fuel oil, to jet kerosene and naptha, and to ...
Published : 2009-01-05 07:59:00

Low(er) oil prices: what they might mean for oil importers like China
I had to think twice before writing the title for this piece. I wrote the words ‘low oil prices’, and then realised that what we call ‘low’ today would have been considered ‘high’ just five years ago, and almost ‘very high’ ten years ago when the annual average price for ...
Published : 2008-12-10 07:38:21

China's economic stimulus package: implications for climate change and energy efficiency
Reading the tea leaves of China’s economic and energy policy rhetoric is never easy, but early November has seen an unusually high degree of apparent internal contradiction. On 7th and 8th November, the UN held a high level meeting in Beijing on technology development and technology transfer relating to climate ...
Published : 2008-11-11 11:04:00

China's oil demand: where is it heading in October 2008?
The regular reader of this column may be surprised to see me using almost the same heading as I used five months ago. Why am I using it? Because once again the world is looking to China to gain some insight into the direction of oil demand and oil prices. ...
Published : 2008-10-13 08:23:00

China arrives in Iraq: what does it mean for China?
In late August 2008, Iraq’s oil minister announced that China’s major oil company, CNPC, had signed a contract with the government to develop the Ahdab field, resurrecting an arrangement reached in 1997. The Ahdab field lies 160 km south-east of Baghdad and was discovered in 1979 by the Iraqi National ...
Published : 2008-09-15 12:44:00

China's energy efficiency drive: is it sustainable?
I write this column on the day of the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. I am sitting in a fifty year old apartment block. The temperature inside is not far below the 32 degrees Celsius outside. Despite the heat, I, for one, am adhering to the State Council’s recent ...
Published : 2008-08-17 07:56:00

China's recent energy price rises: why now and what next?
You should always expect the unexpected in China. The opaque system of government allows major decisions to be sprung on its own population and on the rest of the world with little or no notice. Whilst this mode of operation may indeed constrain speculative behaviour on the part of domestic ...
Published : 2008-07-10 14:29:00

China's coal supply: the Achilles Heel of the nation's energy sector?
Electrical power shortages loom again, and 2008 was meant to be the first year for a while in which China was to have enough power generation capacity to satisfy demand. But the problem is not a shortage of power generation capacity, rather a shortage of coal.  It is easy for ...
Published : 2008-06-09 12:32:00

China's oil demand: where is it heading?
In early May 2008 prices for crude oil are hovering around US$ 120 per barrel, and some are suggesting that they may reach US$ 200 per barrel. What does this mean for demand for oil in the world, in developing countries and, particularly, in China?    The last thirty years ...
Published : 2008-05-08 09:08:00

China: Oil prices, subsidies and rebates - where do we go from here?
In last month’s column I ended with the following words: “China’s energy sector is truly stranded between the plan and the market, and the government retains few levers of management”. There may indeed be few levers left, but the government has not lost faith in these levers. The last few ...
Published : 2008-04-09 19:09:00

China's energy shortages highlight long-term policy challenges?
The country is recovering from one of the most widespread energy supply crises it has suffered in recent memory. The immediate cause was clear: the worst winter weather over central and southern China for more than fifty years. The force of nature can render useless even the most of robust ...
Published : 2008-03-07 19:24:00

Is China's energy policy emerging at last?
Over the last ten years I have made myself unpopular in China by frequently, possibly too frequently, stating that China does not appear to have an energy policy, or at least does not appear to have a coherent energy policy. But I have tried to remember to use the word ...
Published : 2008-01-29 18:52:00

China's draft Energy Law: a new beginning or more of the same?
On the 3rd December 2007 China’s government issued a draft of the proposed Energy Law. There have been several drafts of the Law since the middle of 2006 when work formally started on drafting the Law. This draft is for public comment and comments are to be received by the ...
Published : 2008-01-03 09:35:00

China: Coal mine disasters - soaring demand and weak regulatory capacity?
September and December 2007 were bad months for China’s coal mining industry. In September 181 miners died when a mine in Shandong Province was flooded by heavy rain. In December 105 miners died in the Xinyao village coal mine in Shanxi Province, the country’s main centre for coal production.  When ...
Published : 2007-12-14 11:02:00

China: Dancing with the Russian bear
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has recently returned from a visit to Russia during which he discussed with his counterparts in the Russian government the issue of energy cooperation. Russia has the largest reserves of gas in the world and the seventh largest reserves of oil. China is the second largest ...
Published : 2007-11-18 08:34:00

China: Maximising domestic energy production: but at what cost?
Early October saw an article appearing in the Chinese press which made me think that I had stepped back in time or was having a bad dream. The thrust of the message was that the Chinese government’s focus on energy efficiency and energy conservation was of only marginal significance, and ...
Published : 2007-10-31 08:32:00

China: Policy for natural gas imports back on track?
The recent announcements of deals to increase the level of LNG imports from Australia and to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan show that China’s strategy to import substantial quantities of natural gas may be back on track after two years of uncertainty.  Until the mid-1990s natural gas was the ‘poor ...
Published : 2007-09-30 08:29:00

China's construction boom is wasteful but has deep socio-economic roots
The Chinese government has recently reported energy intensity data for the first six months of 2007. How they manage to have reliable statistics within thirty days of the end of the period is a matter for speculation. But if we accept the data at face value then there has been ...
Published : 2007-08-31 12:40:00

China and Global Climate Change: contrasting views
Late in 2006, the International Energy Agency predicted that China would overtake the USA and become the world’s largest emitter of Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) by 2009. At the end of May 2007, China’s State Council approved a national plan to address the challenges posed by climate change. At the beginning ...
Published : 2007-07-31 12:33:00

Energy efficiency in China: It must be seen as 'cool' to be energy efficient
Recent weeks have seen China’s government re-state its aims to drive up national energy efficiency with the twin objectives of constraining the use of energy resources and constraining the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Though energy intensity declined only slightly in 2006 after rising for three years, the government is ...
Published : 2007-06-30 12:35:00

China's national oil companies: Risk management overseas
The killing of nine Chinese oilfield workers in north Ethiopia in April, and the  kidnapping of a further seven, highlights the challenge of risk management by China’s national oil companies (NOCs) as they go overseas.   Risk is endemic to the business of international oil. Some of these risks long ...
Published : 2007-05-31 12:37:00

China's Draft Energy Law
For more than one year many of the top policy-makers, advisers and academics in China’s energy sector have been engaged in research and consultations which are intended to lead to the promulgation of China’s first Energy Law – a task which is set to take at least two more years. ...
Published : 2007-04-30 12:21:00

China's energy demand: the view from Europe
Two sets of issues of China’s energy strategy are of particular significance to Europe: those relating to oil and those relating to the environment.  China became a net importer of oil in the mid 1990s and is now the world’s third largest importer of oil after the USA and Japan. ...
Published : 2007-03-31 12:36:00

China and African oil
President Hu Jintao’s recent tour of eight African nations, his third visit to this continent as President, and the gathering in Beijing in November 2006 of more than thirty eight African heads of state together mark a milestone in China’s policy to re-engage with this continent. The search for energy ...
Published : 2007-02-28 12:28:00

China's coal-to-liquids plans: a good idea?
In December it was announced that the NDRC had drafted a plan to rapidly expand the scale and scope of the programme to convert coal into liquids which can be used for transport fuels and petro-chemicals. A number of pilot plants are already under construction or in operation, but this ...
Published : 2007-01-31 12:31:00

China's energy sector: review for the year 2006
The year 2006 has been challenging for consumers of energy around the world, whether they be nations, companies or individuals, as well as for investors in energy. Prices have remained high,  governments of energy producing countries have been flexing their political and fiscal muscles, and resultant concerns over security of ...
Published : 2006-12-31 12:27:00

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