Xu Tang

Decline and depletion rates of oil production: a comprehensive investigation.

Two of the most fundamental concepts in the current debate about future oil supply are oilfield decline rates and depletion rates. These concepts are related, but not identical. This paper clarifies the definitions of these concepts, summarizes the underlying theory and empirically estimates decline and depletion rates for different categories of oilfield. A database of 880 post-peak fields is analysed to determine typical depletion levels, depletion rates and decline rates. This demonstrates that the size of oilfields has a significant influence on decline and depletion rates, with generally high values for small fields and comparatively low values for larger fields. These empirical findings have important implications for oil supply forecasting.

Employment impacts of petroleum industry in China: an input-output analysis

Chinas employment issue is catching peoples eyes at present and for a long time. Economic impacts of Chinas petroleum industry on employment are divided into direct, indirect and induced impacts and they are analysed in this study by using the input-output approach. The research results suggest that petroleum industry will supply 0.0957 jobs and 0.1501 jobs given 10,000 CNY final demand added in extraction of petroleum and processing of petroleum respectively; 1,887 CNY and 2,756 CNY of employment income will be affected given 10,000 CNY final demand added in extraction of petroleum and processing of petroleum respectively; extraction of petroleum has more direct impact on both employment number and employment income given one unit output added, and processing of petroleum has more indirect and induced impact on them. The petroleum industrys impact coefficients on both employment number and employment income have been decreasing since 1987. The proportion of direct impacts in total impacts continues to decrease, and the connection between petroleum industry and other sectors in Chinas national economy has become closer than before.

Nexus Between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in China: From the Perspective of Embodied Energy Imports and Exports

ABSTRACT The nexus between energy consumption and economic growth in China is analyzed from the perspective of embodied energy imports and exports in this article. The research results suggest that China is a net embodied energy exporter and it is the inevitable result of China’s present economic development model. Exporting embodied energy contributes significantly to China’s economic development, and the trade-off costs of employment, trade surplus and government tax for China to reduce embodied energy exports are very high. China is bound by its own policies and unable to radically change its embodied energy exporting position within the foreseeable future.

The relationship between international crude oil prices and China’s refined oil prices based on a structural VAR model

With the frequent fluctuations of international crude oil prices and China’s increasing dependence on foreign oil in recent years, the volatility of international oil prices has significantly influenced China domestic refined oil price. This paper aims to investigate the transmission and feedback mechanism between international crude oil prices and China’s refined oil prices for the time span from January 2011 to November 2015 by using the Granger causality test, vector autoregression model, impulse response function and variance decomposition methods. It is demonstrated that variation of international crude oil prices can cause China domestic refined oil price to change with a weak feedback effect. Moreover, international crude oil prices and China domestic refined oil prices are affected by their lag terms in positive and negative directions in different degrees. Besides, an international crude oil price shock has a significant positive impact on domestic refined oil prices while the impulse response of the international crude oil price variable to the domestic refined oil price shock is negatively insignificant. Furthermore, international crude oil prices and domestic refined oil prices have strong historical inheritance. According to the variance decomposition analysis, the international crude oil price is significantly affected by its own disturbance influence, and a domestic refined oil price shock has a slight impact on international crude oil price changes. The domestic refined oil price variance is mainly caused by international crude oil price disturbance, while the domestic refined oil price is slightly affected by its own disturbance. Generally, domestic refined oil prices do not immediately respond to an international crude oil price change, that is, there is a time lag.

Forecasting of China’s natural gas production and its policy implications

With the vigorous promotion of energy conservation and implementation of clean energy strategies, China’s natural gas industry has entered a rapid development phase, and natural gas is playing an increasingly important role in China’s energy structure. This paper uses a Generalized Weng model to forecast Chinese regional natural gas production, where accuracy and reasonableness compared with other predictions are enhanced by taking remaining estimated recoverable resources as a criterion. The forecast shows that China’s natural gas production will maintain a rapid growth with peak gas of 323 billion cubic meters a year coming in 2036; in 2020, natural gas production will surpass that of oil to become a more important source of energy. Natural gas will play an important role in optimizing China’s energy consumption structure and will be a strategic replacement of oil. This will require that exploration and development of conventional natural gas is highly valued and its industrial development to be reasonably planned. As well, full use should be made of domestic and international markets. Initiative should also be taken in the exploration and development of unconventional and deepwater gas, which shall form a complement to the development of China’s conventional natural gas industry.

The energy efficiency DEA method in value of economic continuity

Energy is of vital importance to economic development in every country nowadays. With the worldwide decreasing trend of energy reserves growth rate, energy efficiency is receiving more and more attentions. This paper focuses on improving the total factor energy efficiency DEA method from the respective of reverse thinking in order to analyse the results in value of economic continuity, and to calculate the TFEE of countries in time series. This paper takes the top ten energy consuming countries in 2011 as examples, and compares the results between the traditional and the improved methods respectively. The results show that energy efficiency calculated from traditional method could be overestimated, and the changing trends of energy efficiency in different periods could not be reflected by the traditional method.

Petroleum Industry’s Impacts on Government Tax Revenues of China: An Input–Output Analysis

Petroleum industry has made tremendous contribution on the government tax revenues of China. A model is established to analyze petroleum industry’s impacts on government tax revenues of China in this study based on the Input-Output approach. Petroleum industry’s impacts on government tax revenues are divided into direct, indirect and induced impacts. The research results suggest that the total impacts of extraction of petroleum and processing of petroleum on government tax revenues in 2007 are 176.6 billion CNY and 404.0 billion CNY respectively; extraction of petroleum has more direct impacts on government tax revenues given one unit output added, processing of petroleum has more indirect and induced impacts.