Prospecting the Local Oil Market As a part of its WTO commitments, China opened its retail

Prospecting the Local Oil Market

As a part of its WTO commitments, China opened its retail oil market at the end of last year. By December 2006, China will open up its wholesale market, allowing foreign enterprises to sell oil in large quantities and compete head on with China's state-owned oil companies. Foreign oil businesses will be able to build up oil depots, set up wharfs (码头) for shipping and create bigger sales networks. In order to capture as much market share in China as possible, many foreign oil giants have already allocated (拨款) capital to expand their presence in China and devised strategic plans to increase their competitive edge.

Fierce competition is unavoidable as the Chinese oil market opens further. China is now the world's third largest consumer of oil. Currently, the two state-owned enterprises, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), dominate the Chinese wholesale market, and foreign companies must get their approval before they can enter local retail and wholesale markets. In addition, the oil import business is monopolized by the following five Chinese enterprises: Sinopec, CNPC, Sinochem Corp., China National Offshore Oil Corp. and Zhuhai Zhen Rong Co. Nevertheless, experts say that as long as WTO commitments are honored, the monopoly in China's oil sector will be broken. Though the market share of foreign companies will likely increase to some extent, experts say that it shouldn't challenge the dominance of Sinopec and CNPC.

Breaking the Monopoly

"After 2006, the monopoly will end. The market will be carved up by three kinds of companies: state-owned wholesale enterprises, foreign enterprises and domestic private enterprises," noted an expert.

Coincidentally, China tried to adopt a relatively free market before 1999. Privateand state-owned enterprises were developing together in the oil retail and wholesale markets. However, by 1998, the oil market became uncontrolled. It fell into disorder with the positioning of too many gas stations and rampant international oil smuggling. With ineffective government management and control, the private enterprises expanded viciously, costing Sinopec and CNPC millions of U.S. dollars income losses.

In May 1999, the State Council decided to rectify (改正) the disorder in the domestic oil market by retaining no wholesalers other than Sinopec and CNPC. Therefore, the wholesale market changed from a free market into one monopolized and controlled by Sinopec and CNPC.

After China's entry into the WTO, the wholesale market was loosened to some extent. In October 2003, Hubei Tianfa Co. Ltd. was granted a license to enter the wholesale market by the Ministry of Commerce, allowed to deal in the gasoline, kerosene, and diesel oil wholesale business. While it marked the entry of a third company in the wholesale market, the license was the first ever granted to a Chinese private enterprise since the market was restructured in 1999. Since then, Chinese private capital has gradually begun to enter the wholesale oil market.

Foreign Competition Ready

The wholesale oil market is going to be opened up in 2006 and the cooperation between foreign oil companies and their Chinese counterparts is beginning to change. The focus of foreign companies is changing from cooperation with Chinese companies to exploration and development. They are now building their own petroleum processing and storage stations and increasing their stake in the sales center.

According to the current local policy, the storage capacity of a wholesaler's oil storage depots must be larger than 4000 cubic meters. Last year, BP Global (British Petroleum) built up the Nansha oil depot as a joint venture with Guangzhou Development Industry Co. Ltd. The Nansha oil depot, currently the largest and most advanced oil depot in Chi

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