Li Huaiqi, secretary of the Board of Directors of China National Petroleum Corporation, said recently that from the development trends in recent years, the development of the world's petroleum and petrochemical industry has the following characteristics:
First, the globalization of the petroleum and petrochemical industry is increasingly evident. The main operating entities in the world's petroleum and petrochemical industries include: large international oil companies, national oil companies, and independent oil companies. International large oil companies are the most important force in the globalization of the world's oil industry. In order to share international resources and markets, the National Petroleum Corporation has been accelerating the development of its oil industry and accelerating the expansion of its overseas business. It has gradually transformed itself from a pure state oil company to a market-oriented multinational company. The national oil company is becoming an international player in the petroleum and petrochemical industry. The emerging force. With the acceleration of the process of world economic integration, the globalization trend of the world's petroleum and petrochemical industries will become increasingly apparent.
Second, technological progress is an important driving force for the development of the world's petroleum and petrochemical industries. In recent years, with the continuous advancement of geophysical sciences and information technology, it will allow oil exploration and development to expand into more new fields, and the recovery rate will continue to increase. In particular, the process of unconventional oil input development will be significantly accelerated. The refining and chemical industry will also accelerate the development of technologies and processes that require less production processes, short process flow, high production efficiency, high raw material utilization, low energy consumption, and environmental protection. Accord with market demand for lighter oil products, accelerating growth and clean fuel production demand With the trend of improvement, the refinery structure has been further adjusted, and the deep processing capacity and device adaptability have been improved.
Third, the degree of industry concentration continues to increase. With the advancement of technology and the ever-increasing competition in the industry, the degree of concentration in the world's petroleum and petrochemical industries continues to increase. Since 1998, the world's petroleum industry has seen mergers, reorganizations, and joint waves with the major characteristics of the merger of giant oil companies. The concentration of oil and gas resources continues to increase. The refining and petrochemical industries have demonstrated the continuous increase in capital and technology concentration. The scale of enterprises and installations have continued to expand, and the scale and installation scale of refineries and chemical plants have further increased. The integration of refining and chemical plants and base construction have become a trend.
Fourth, the development of natural gas in the world will become a bright spot for the development of the oil industry. The position of unconventional oil and gas in the growth of global oil production capacity is increasingly important. So far, the use of natural gas in the world has been mainly concentrated in the three major areas of power generation, industry and civil use. With the increase in the demand for environmental protection and the development and breakthrough of science and technology, the expansion of natural gas consumption is significantly faster than oil, and natural gas will become a new bright spot in the development of the world's oil industry. Because the development level of the old oilfield is already at a relatively high level, and the difficulty of newly discovering conventional oil and gas resources is increasing, as unconventional oil and gas development technologies gradually mature in the future, unconventional oil and gas, such as oil sands and heavy oil, will increase in global oil production capacity. Status is increasingly important.
Fifth, the world petrochemical industry will transfer to the Middle East and Asia Pacific. In recent years, due to the influence of markets, trade, and oil prices, especially the strict environmental protection requirements in Europe and the United States, the western developed countries have been forced to tighten their petrochemical production, and they have turned to invest in factories and joint ventures in resource-rich countries or developing countries with large markets. In the world, ethylene production will take place in North America, Asia Pacific, Western Europe and the Middle East. The Asia-Pacific region will exceed North America as the world’s largest ethylene production area. Due to the abundant and cheap oil and gas resources in the Middle East, the Middle East attracted a large amount of capital to invest in petrochemical projects.