Since 2020, the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, disruptions to global supply chains, and frequent extreme weather have led to a sharp decline in global oil and gas investment. In addition, OPEC+ (members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus some oil-producing countries represented by Russia) implemented large-scale The production reduction plan, when the global economy recovers in 2021, the global energy supply is obviously insufficient, resulting in the continued rise of international commodity prices represented by energy.

The current Russian-Ukrainian conflict has once again hit the global energy market. The United States and Britain have announced they will stop importing Russian oil and gas, and the European Union has set a goal of reducing its reliance on Russian fossil fuels by two-thirds. Under the pressure of the global response to climate change and the continuous tightening of energy supply, the evolution of the international situation has prompted some new changes and new trends in the global energy resources market.

Short-term volatility in global energy markets intensifies

Oil markets are most vulnerable to risk factors including natural disasters, major technological mishaps and geopolitical tensions. A lack of investment due to the pandemic and plans for massive OPEC+ production cuts have tightened global oil supplies, with global oil prices posting their biggest annual gain on record in 2021.

After the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the international relations continued to deteriorate. The United States and Europe and other countries and regions continued to increase the intensity of economic sanctions against Russia, which deepened the concerns of countries around the world about energy security issues. Risk aversion triggered a huge rise in international commodity prices. The price of Brent crude oil futures in London has soared from the opening price of $78.09 per barrel in 2022 to $139 per barrel in March, and the spot price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil once rose to a high of $130 per barrel.

Subsequently, the member states of the International Energy Agency (IEA) took collective action and twice pledged to release 120 million barrels of emergency reserves of crude oil and petroleum products in the next six months to quell the rise in oil prices caused by Russia's sharp reduction in supply. International oil prices fell. to below $100/barrel.

OPEC+'s commitment to slow production increases and the IEA's inventory release will ease the shortage of crude oil, but these measures cannot fundamentally solve the structural imbalance in the oil market caused by years of underinvestment and extremely loose global liquidity.

Global oil inventories have fallen for 14 consecutive months. The IEA has warned that about 3 million barrels a day of Russian oil may not be able to flow into international markets from May due to sanctions or active embargoes, coupled with uncertainty over Ukraine and the closure of Libyan fields, the outlook for crude oil markets is fraught with uncertainty As a result, the price of Brent crude oil futures in London rose to $112.72 a barrel on April 18. High oil prices will pose a serious threat to the global economic outlook.

Europe's energy transition accelerates

Europe has been facing rising energy prices as the economy recovers. The energy crisis in late 2021 has dealt a severe blow to European gas demand, with benchmark gas prices in the region more than tripling, forcing European utilities to switch to polluting coal resources.

The outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has exacerbated uncertainty in Europe's energy supply. The EU relies on imports for 90% of its natural gas consumption, while Russia provides more than 40% of the EU's total gas consumption. Russia also accounts for 27% of the EU's total oil imports and 46% of its coal imports.

In order to achieve the goal of gradually eliminating Russia's dependence on fossil fuels by 2030, the European Commission formulated the "Joint Action on Affordable, Safe and Sustainable Energy in Europe" in March 2022, which will upgrade the EU-wide energy system based on two pillars. Resilience: One is to increase the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline gas from non-Russian suppliers, as well as to increase the production and import of biomethane and renewable hydrogen; Facility bottlenecks, etc., reduce reliance on fossil fuels faster at the household, building and industrial level, and at the power system level.

According to the plan, EU member states will reduce Russian gas imports by 2/3 in 2022, and completely close the channel of energy imports to Russia by 2030. In April, the EU also announced an embargo on Russian coal. Accelerating the transition to renewable energy and improving energy efficiency by supporting the diversification of energy supplies will significantly increase Europe's energy independence and accelerate Europe's transition to clean energy.

At present, my country's energy cooperation faces many challenges

With the rapid development of China's economy, my country has made great achievements in the expansion of overseas energy interests. There are more and more cooperation projects in oil and gas trade, oil and gas exploration and development, oil and gas engineering contracting, and oil and gas pipeline construction, covering Africa, Asia-Pacific, In the five major regions of the Middle East, Latin America, Russia and Central Asia, the prairie fire has taken shape. However, my country's energy cooperation has not been smooth sailing, and various challenges and problems have emerged one after another, which can be summed up as follows:

1. Major resource countries have high investment risks

my country's overseas energy interests involve five major regions, namely Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, Russia and Central Asia, mainly covering more than 30 target countries. In 2021, my country's crude oil imports will be 513 million tons, and the import sources are mainly concentrated in the above-mentioned countries. Most of them have high political risks, poor investment environment, and unstable and uncertain factors in the cooperation process are still not effective. control.

2. Insufficient shipping influence and control

63% of my country's crude oil imports from the Middle East and Africa either pass through the Strait of Hormuz, to the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca and finally transport to China; or pass the Suez River through the Gulf of Aden, pass through the Arabian Sea to the Indian Ocean, and then transport it to China through the Strait of Malacca. Onshore oil and gas transport channels account for less than 15% of the volume. Therefore, it is difficult for us to get rid of "Malacca dependence" in a short time.

3. The overseas competitiveness of energy companies is not strong

There is a big gap between the overseas competitiveness of Chinese energy companies and foreign companies. In the past two years, the bidding results of overseas projects of domestic energy companies have been poor, and most of the winning projects are located in areas with poor quality conditions and poor investment resolution.

4. Energy industry chain cooperation needs to be strengthened urgently

In the past, my country's expansion of overseas energy interests paid more attention to upstream companies in the energy industry, as well as midstream companies. However, the cooperation pattern of the whole industry chain has not been formed, and the promotion of international energy cooperation lacks integrity, that is, the cooperation pattern of the whole oil and gas industry chain integrating exploration and development, pipeline construction and operation, engineering and technical services, oil refining and sales has not been formed.

5. Insufficient participation in global energy governance

In the process of expanding international energy cooperation, my country has the objective situation of lack of international voice and poor ability to respond to crises. At present, there is still the "Malacca" dilemma, mainly facing the dual threats of traditional security and non-traditional security.

Analysis of my country's coal market: the traditional off-season has arrived, and the boom will continue

Thermal coal: Global coal prices will continue to rise and remain strong, supporting domestic coal prices

It is expected that global coal prices will continue to rise and remain strong, supporting coal prices in the domestic market. In 2021, my country's thermal coal import dependence will be 4.1%, of which 60% will come from Indonesian coal. Therefore, Indonesian coal prices have a greater impact on my country's thermal coal market prices. As mentioned above, international thermal coal price fluctuations are transmitted from Indonesian coal to the Chinese market. As the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues, global fossil energy prices have accelerated. It is estimated that the imported CIF price of thermal coal in Newcastle, Australia has exceeded the domestic coal price, and the CIF coal from Indonesia The price is basically the same as the domestic coal price with the same calorific value (as mentioned above, the price difference is about 0-20 yuan/ton), and the international coal price strongly supports the domestic market coal price. In addition, the chairman of the Indonesian Coal Mining Association said that in order to ensure sufficient supply of local power plants, new restrictions on overseas sales of Indonesian coal may be implemented in April or August, a move that may push the international coal price, which is already at a record high, to continue. rise.

Coking coal: "Steady growth and building infrastructure" support demand, short-term tight supply continues, long-term view of the increase in Russian coal and Mongolian coal imports

"Steady growth, building infrastructure" is expected to support coking coal demand. The "Government Work Report" of the 2022 Two Sessions proposed that my country's economic growth plan in 2022 will be around 5.5%, indicating that the policy of stabilizing growth will be further heated up, and the infrastructure investment will be carried out ahead of time, which will benefit the coal, coke and steel industry chain. With the conclusion of the Winter Olympics, the Winter Paralympics and the Two Sessions, downstream coking steel enterprises have resumed production and work one after another, and the operating rate has increased, which is expected to support the demand for coking coal in the future.

Supply side: The short-term supply will continue to be tight. In the long-term, the import of Russian coal and Mongolian coal will increase. The import dependence of my country's coking coal is higher than that of thermal coal. In recent years, it has been around 13%. In 2021, it will be reduced to 10% under the restriction of Australian coal imports. Mongolian coal and Russian coal have surpassed Australian coal and become my country's top two coking coal importers. In 2021, Mongolian coal and Russian coal will account for 25.6% and 19.5% of total coking coal imports, respectively. At present, Mongolian coal imports are greatly affected by the repeated epidemics in Mongolia, Russian coal imports are limited by trade settlement, and domestic supply increments are limited, and the short-term coking coal supply remains tight.

In the long run, 1) Mongolia's newly opened railway will increase transportation capacity and reduce the impact of the epidemic, and Mongolia's coal imports may increase; 2) According to "Russia Today" reports, many Russian banks have already connected to China's Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). ), with the settlement of trade settlement issues in the later period, it is expected that the import volume of Russian coal will increase. According to the Russian "Kommersant" report, Russia and China are negotiating on the issue of doubling coal supply. If the negotiation is successful, China will become the main importer of Russian coal. "Kommersant" said that "if this goal is achieved, China will account for half of Russia's total exports". If this goal is achieved, the total amount of coal imported from Russia to China will be roughly 100 million tons.

Anthracite: Imports account for a small proportion, and coal chemical industry will lead the increase in demand

The proportion of anthracite imports is low, and the consumption is mainly domestic. In 2020, the apparent domestic consumption of anthracite coal is 365 million tons, of which the net import volume is 60 million tons, accounting for only 1.6%. From 2014 to 2020, the proportion of imported coal to domestic anthracite coal consumption gradually decreased, from 6.2% to 1.6%, and the impact of overseas markets on the domestic market also gradually decreased.