Study on the Impacts of the LNG Market Reform in China using a SVM based Rolling Horizon Stochastic Game Analysis

Abstract

Natural gas is expected to play a much more important role in China in future decades and its market reform is crucial for its fast market penetration. At present, the main gas fields, pipeline and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) infrastructure are monopolized by the state owned big companies, and one of the important market reform policies is to open the LNG import rights to small private companies or traders. Therefore, in the present study, a Game Analysis Model is proposed to analyze and compare the impacts of different market structures on infrastructure deployment and social welfare. Moreover, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based rolling horizon stochastic method has been adopted in the model to simulate the real LNG price fluctuations. The results indicate that, with the third part access (TPA) entrance into LNG market, the construction of LNG infrastructure will be promoted and more gas will be provided with lower prices, and thus the total social welfare will be improved greatly.