Analysis of China’s Oil Trade Pattern and Structural Security Assessment from 2017 to 2021

Abstract

Oil is an important strategic resource of the country, and the oil trade structure is related to national oil security. In this paper, based on the data of China’s oil import trade from 2017 to 2021, using the methods of import concentration, the Shannon entropy index, and quantitative evaluation of trade structure, the authors analyze the import pattern and the trade structure security of 7 oil varieties, including crude oil, vehicle gasoline, aviation gasoline, naphtha, aviation kerosene, No. 5-7 fuel oil, unburned petroleum coke, and petroleum asphalt. The research shows that the trend of the large-scale and diversified import patterns of China’s oil import is obvious, and the main importing countries of various oil varieties are relatively stable. The structural security of crude oil is the highest, and the import structure is a medium and highly-centralized oligopoly. The import structure of other oil varieties belongs to a highly-centralized or very highly-centralized oligopoly. The security of the import structure of China’s oil varieties is low and shows a downward trend. As shown by the early warning calculations of the trade structure, increasing the number and transaction proportion of the trading partners in the collaborative growth zone and reducing the number and transaction proportion of the trading partners in reverse inhibition zone, we can optimize the oil varieties import structure of China.