Liu Zheng, deputy to the National People's Congress, suggested: Speed up the construction of floating oil storage bases at sea and improve China's oil reserve capacity

According to the "News Horizontal" report of the Voice of China of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, due to a variety of factors, since the beginning of this year, the fluctuations in international crude oil prices have intensified, and "negative oil prices" have appeared in the international crude oil market for the first time. Although international oil prices have rebounded recently due to a recovery in demand and accelerated production cuts in oil-producing countries, concerns about a second wave of the epidemic still hang over the market.

The oil reserve is one of the important strategic reserve projects of a country. Liu Zheng, deputy to the 13th National People's Congress and former secretary of the party committee and chairman of the board of directors of The China State Shipbuilding Group, suggested that the construction of floating oil storage bases at sea should be accelerated to improve China's oil reserve capacity. How long does it take to build an offshore oil storage base? What are the advantages of offshore storage compared to onshore storage?

Petroleum reserves, like foreign exchange reserves, are important strategic reserve resources to ensure the stable operation of a country's economy and society, and an important guarantee for the country to be protected from or less affected by major external risks. Liu Zheng believes that in recent years, China's oil reserve construction has made great progress, but there is still a gap between the reserves and the needs of economic and social development.

According to the International Energy Agency, a country's oil reserves should reach at least 90 days of imports. For example, in 2019, China's crude oil imports of more than 500 million tons, to reach the 90-day 'safety line', China's oil reserves must reach at least 125 million tons. From the perspective of actual reserves, China's oil reserves are currently about 40 million tons, which is far from the requirements of safe reserves. Liu Zheng said.

In view of this, China has completed the construction of the first phase of the oil reserve project, including Zhoushan, Zhenhai, Dalian and Huangdao and other 4 bases, the total reserve capacity of 12.43 million tons, the second phase of the project is expected to be completed by the end of this year, when China's oil reserves have not exceeded 70 million tons, there is still a security reserve gap of about 50 million tons. Liu Zheng believes that offshore floating oil storage provides an excellent choice for China to accelerate the capacity building of oil storage: "Offshore floating oil storage is a kind of improvement and supplement to the land oil storage capacity, but it cannot replace land oil storage, especially in the current situation, which can be rapidly improved." ”

In Liu Zheng's view, existing old ships can be put on the job to store oil, which not only shortens the cycle of crude oil facility construction, but also boosts the development of China's shipbuilding industry. "There are many super-large oil transport ships in China, and if the state buys them back, they can be immediately converted into oil reserve capacity." The current oil reserve capacity has been reduced, and a number of ships in the past have been eliminated. These ships are lagging behind in terms of safety and environmental protection, but the ability to reserve oil is still available, and after eliminating backward ships, it has stimulated two major companies to build new ships, which has also stimulated domestic demand. Liu Zheng said.

At the same time, from the perspective of construction cycle and cost, Liu Zheng analyzed that the current construction cost of offshore floating equipment has dropped by at least 40% compared with the historical high. "Now the construction of a batch of offshore floating oil plants, compared to the peak, the cost is reduced by 40%, and it is economically feasible," he said. The construction cycle is basically 1.5-2 years, and a large number of devices will be delivered for use, which is also realistic from the perspective of time. ”

In addition, floating oil storage is more secure than fixed land storage equipment due to its mobility. Liu Zheng said: "Floating oil storage facilities generally have power and can be moved, unlike land-based oil storage, which is fixed and can be transported over long distances to facilitate the timely transportation of reserve crude oil." In addition, from the perspective of safety, floating oil storage can avoid the impact of earthquakes and so on. Therefore, in general, floating oil storage facilities not only have advantages in terms of safety and economy, but also can be built quickly to achieve the rapid improvement of China's oil reserve capacity. ”

Liu Zheng said that the current trend of international oil prices provides a rare window of time for China to increase crude oil reserves. The market generally predicts that the contraction of global crude oil demand in 2020 has become a foregone conclusion, and it is difficult for oil prices to effectively break through $40 / barrel throughout the year. However, Liu Zheng said that in the medium and long term, oil prices cannot deviate from the real value for a long time, and international oil prices will enter an upward channel in the future. In addition to OPEC countries, the global crude oil production cost is basically above $35 / barrel, after 2021, oil prices are expected to rise to more than $50 / barrel.

For example, Liu Zheng said: "Taking a vlcc that can reserve 2 million barrels of crude oil as an example, according to the price difference of 20 US dollars / barrel, a vlcc floating oil storage can save about 300 million yuan in cost (price) for China's oil reserves." (Reporter Guo Miao)