Study on the rank-size distribution and variation of crude oil flow in China

Abstract

This study takes crude oil flow in China as the research subjects,and takes provincial-level administrative units as the nodes of crude oil flow.Meanwhile,selecting five typical years in 1985-2007 as the time points for research and with Zipf law,this paper discusses the rank-size distribution variation of input and output flow of crude oil in China.Some results are obtained as follows.(1) The rank-size distributions of input and output flow is consistent with Zipf law in the five typical years.(2) The non-scaling range of the output flow varies very little,while the one of input flow is narrowed at first and then enlarged gradually.(3) As to the spatial fractal structure,the output flow has no segmentation in its non-scaling range,and appears as a single fractal all along.However,the input flow experiences a process from double fractals to single fractal.(4) There are differences between the spatial distribution pattern of input flow and output flow.The one of input flow changed from lognormal distribution in 1985 to Pareto distribution in 1995,then lognormal distribution again in 1999,and it finally became Pareto distribution in 2003 and 2007.Meanwhile,the spatial distribution pattern of output flow maintains Pareto distribution.(5) Generally,the variations of output flow and input flow are not synchronous,which is closely related to the spatial distribution of huge oil fields,the distribution of petrochemical industries,the oil distribution system and so on in China.