Oil Security Research Articles

A multi-component surrogate mechanism of diesel from indirect coal liquefaction for diesel engine combustion and emission simulations

Diesel from indirect coal liquefaction (DICL) is a kind of extremely promising alternative fuel to alleviate the oil security problem caused by excessive dependence on imported oil and reduce the pollutant emission. However, the mechanism of diesel from indirect coal liquefaction is very few, and the numerical simulation of combustion and emission characteristics of diesel from indirect coal liquefaction is even less. Therefore, a reduced mechanism of DICL, entailing 178 components and 650 reactions, was put forward to research the combustion and emission characteristics of engines fueled with DICL under different loads in this work. n-Hexadecane (HXN) mechanism and 2,2,4,4,6,8,8-heptamethylnonane mechanism (HMN) were respectively considered as representative species of straight-chain paraffin and branched alkane in surrogate model. Firstly, direct relation graph and direct relation graph with error propagation were used in turn. Then, sensitivity analysis coupled with rate of production analysis has been used to further reduce the detail 2,2,4,4,6,8,8-heptamethylnonane mechanism. After that, the skeleton mechanism of n-hexadecane and the reduced polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) mechanism were combined with the simplified HMN mechanism to develop a novel multi-component mechanism of HXN-HMN-PAH. Brute-force sensitivity analyses were respectively conducted at different temperatures to find out these key reactions that have great effects on the ignition delay times (IDTs). Then, the optimizations of the reduced mechanism were made based on the ignition delay times of the experimental datum and the detail mechanism. A proportion of 71.5% HXN and 28.5% HMN by mole fraction was determined according to the properties of practical DICL. Furthermore, the optimized mechanism was employed to verify experimental values including the ignition delay times, the species concentrations on jet-stirred reactors (JSR) and the laminar flame speeds. Eventually, the mechanism was coupled into computational fluid dynamic (CFD) to perform multi-dimensional numerical simulation validation in a directed injection compression ignition (DICI) engine under different loads.

Auxiliary cognition system‐based management strategy optimization of supply chain of new energy in oil–gas enterprises

AbstractThe work focuses on the optimization of management strategies of energy supply chain in oil–gas enterprises to find out the optimal management strategy and overcome the fragility of the traditional energy supply system. Back propagation neural network (BPNN) is applied to energy supply predicting and energy security early warning in oil–gas enterprises, and the security early warning system is designed based on the auxiliary cognitive system. The security early warning system is used to predict the peak value of oil and gas supply, and then the detection performances and the data security transmission performances of different models are compared and analysed. Finally, a comprehensive evaluation model for security management of oil–gas supply chain based on the neural network is established. It is found that compared with convolutional neural network (CNNs), the improved BPNN model algorithm proposed shows increased accuracy by 5.4%, reduced model training time and test time, and improved accuracy and recall rate. The accuracy, recall rate, and F1 value of the proposed model are 88.48%, 75.88%, and 96.21%, respectively, which were obviously higher than those of the CNN. It suggests that the improved security management model of oil–gas supply chain shows better recognition and prediction accuracy. Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis results, the optimization suggestions for management strategies in oil–gas enterprises are put forward, which is of strategic significance for improving the security of oil–gas supply.

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

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.

Assessment of stakeholder’s attitude towards intelligence gathering and use in the security of oil and gas operations in the Niger delta region

The study examined stakeholder’s attitude towards intelligence gathering and use in the security of Oil and Gas operations in the Niger Delta Region. The study made us of 340 respondents which comprised of private security surveillance contractors, staff of Security department in oil companies, Managers in the selected oil companies and finally Government security personnel attached to oil companies and host community leaders across the selected Sates for the study. The study made use of questionnaire as the source of date on a five point Likert scale of Agree, Strongly Agree, Undecided, Disagree and Strongly Disagree. Key informant’s interviews were also conducted. The study found that those stakeholders have a positive attitude towards intelligence gathering and its use in the security of oil and gas operation in the Niger Delta region. Hence it recommended that Oil and gas companies should display more transparency in their dealings with host communities in order to establish a robust communication network for gathering intelligence and preventing any damage to oil and gas installations.

Assessment of stakeholder's attitude towards intelligence gathering and use in the security of oil and gas operations in the Niger delta region

Assessment of stakeholder's attitude towards intelligence gathering and use in the security of oil and gas operations in the Niger delta region

Geopolitical risk and China's oil security

This paper aims to make a comprehensive evaluation of China's oil situation from 2000 to 2018. We establish an evaluation framework from three dimensions of oil supply, oil consumption and oil ecology, and calculate the comprehensive score and scores of three dimensions. Results show that the comprehensive score of China's oil security increased from 0.3 to about 0.6 in 2000–2018. After rapid growth from 2003 to 2008, the oil supply security score stabilized at the level of 0.6. In general, China's oil security situation is steadily improving. Further, ADL-MIDAS model is employed to investigate the impact of four types of geopolitical risks (GPRs) on China's oil security. The findings suggest that GPRs have negative effects on China's comprehensive oil security. In the robustness tests, these effects don't change with adjustments to the assessment framework, changes in subjective weights, or the choice of regression models. The impacts of GPRs on China's oil security are mainly realized through the oil supply dimension. GPRs threatening China's oil security are reflected in oil interruption in the international market. Finally, the paper puts forward several policy implications from the perspective of oil security assessment and GPRs.

Current Situation and Prospect of Walnut Industry in China

Walnut is one of the four major nuts in the world. China is one of the origins and distribution centers of genus Juglans. Walnut plays an important role in China’s non-wood forest industry, which is of great significance to the national grain and oil security, farmers’ income increase, life quality improvement, and ecological environment construction. On the basis of reviewing the three fields of germplasm resources and breeding, cultivation technologies, and walnut processing and utilization that China’s walnut industry focuses on, this paper puts forward suggestions on the outstanding problems faced by the current industry, in order to provide references for the decision-making of relevant departments.

International Energy Agency and U.S. Economic Policy

The article is devoted to the activities of International Energy Agency (IEA) on the background of the United States economic policy. The IEA was founded in 1974 to develop a collective response of Western countries to major disruptions in the supply of oil. The key purpose of International Energy Agency was to coordinate energy policy of developed countries and to limit activities of petroleum exporting countries. Some reasons for international energy markets regulations are being discussed in the article. For the last decades International Energy Agency is at the center of global dialogue on energy, providing authoritative analysis, data, policy recommendations, and real-world solutions to help countries provide secure and sustainable energy resources. In spite of this fact there are some serious contradictions between member countries. While oil security remains a key aspect of its work, the IEA has evolved and expanded significantly since its foundation. The IEA recommends policies that enhance the reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy. It examines the full spectrum issues including renewables, oil, gas and coal supply and demand, energy efficiency, clean energy technologies, electricity systems and markets, access to energy, demand-side management, and much more. Some aspects of President Biden administration energy policy are being discussed in the article. The article covers major trends of structural changes in US energy consumption during 2010 – 2020. Statistical analysis shows that oil and natural gas industries have very insignificant effects on US gross domestic product. Political sanctions against Russia continue to impact global energy demand. Current situation on the global oil market is being analyzed.

Seamless and automated rapeseed mapping for large cloudy regions using time-series optical satellite imagery

Accurate field-level mapping of rapeseed spatial distributions using remote sensing technology supports agricultural planning, food and edible oil security, and ecological system management. The phenological and spectral methods for rapeseed mapping mainly rely on optical images collected during the flowering period. However, these images are often occluded by clouds. Moreover, the scarcity of well-represented training samples with various phenology patterns constrains large-scale supervised classification and extraction of rapeseed. To solve these problems, we propose a novel Seamless and Automated Rapeseed Mapping (SARM) method using time-series optical satellite imagery for large cloudy regions to generate seamless rapeseed maps at field scale without any manually collected samples. First, a Winter Rapeseed Index (WRI) was designed to automatically extract rapeseed in cloud-free areas by enhancing the phenological separability of rapeseed. Second, a multiple random forest-based fusion mapping framework was developed using WRI-based training samples, and was applied for the cloudy regions to map rapeseed seamlessly across the whole study area. The proposed SARM method was validated under different years, sensors, and cropping patterns at four study sites both in China and the USA. Extensive experimental results and analysis suggest that the SARM method outperforms other traditional methods on all four study sites with an average overall accuracy varying from 88.58% to 98.78%. These results also reveal that our proposed approach is capable of expanding the time windows for rapeseed mapping from the significant flowering period to the insignificant flowering period. More importantly, the spatial incompleteness of rapeseed maps caused by cloud contamination was mitigated to some degree. The SARM method robustly delivers seamless and automated rapeseed mapping by using time-series optical satellite imagery, thus offering new insights for crop investigation, especially in large cloudy regions.

Study on the laminar burning velocity of ethanol/RP-3 aviation kerosene premixed flame

Ethanol biofuel is one renewable liquid fuel which can mix with aviation kerosene and be used as the alternative fuel in aero-engine to release oil security as well as reduce CO2 emission. In the present work, experiments were carried out in a constant volume chamber to obtain the laminar burning velocity (LBV) of ethanol/RP-3 premixed flame. The effects of ethanol addition on the LBV of RP-3 were analyzed experimentally and theoretically. Experimental results show that with the increase of ethanol addition, the LBV of ethanol/RP-3 premixed flame increases. Theoretical analysis indicates that the chemical effect of ethanol addition on the LBV of ethanol/RP-3 plays a decisive role. The three effects of ethanol addition are in the order of chemical > dilution > thermal effect. Sensitivity analysis and reaction pathway analysis of ethanol/RP-3 combustion process shows that with the increase of ethanol addition, the formation of CH3, CH2O, and HCO increase due to the more active radical of OH participates in the primary reactions. In addition, the active radicals of H, O, and OH also increase because of the increase of ethanol addition, which promote the LBV of ethanol/RP-3 premixed flame.

Analysis of changes in the survivability of building structures reinforced after an emergency dynamic impact in the context of assessing the security of buildings in the oil and gas industry

The relevance of the subject matter is conditioned by the technical complexity of the oil and gas facilities due to the increase in the volume and rate of raw materials production, which may be affected by shock-wave loads in emergency situations. The causes of the impact can be explosions, heavy cargo falls, terrorist attacks, natural and anthropogenic disasters, etc. These situations are very likely to cause significant damage to the building structures of industrial facilities, which necessitates their reinforcement. For further safe operation of the facility, reinforced structures must have survivability under repeated impacts no less than before the reinforcement. Given the fact that the survivability of buildings is a complex characteristic influenced by many factors, and it itself is a component of the security of a hazardous production facility, research in this area is topical. The purpose of the study is to test the developed method for assessing the survivability of a building structure under short-term shock-wave load based on the energy parameter and to analyze the results obtained in the context of assessing the security of critical oil and gas facilities. Research methods: Measurement of accelerations, deflections, and loads by strain measurement methods, graphoanalytical method of study using the Microsoft Excel software. A method for assessing the level of survivability of a building structure under shock-wave loading for critical oil and gas facilities using the survivability coefficient is developed. Using specific tests of conventional and cage-reinforced bending concrete elements for short-term dynamic load, the values of the specified coefficient are obtained. The values are compared and conclusions are drawn.

The Multiple Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on China’s Oil Security and the Rising Green Opportunities

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously challenged the global oil market, and coronavirus-induced oil prices crash, oil demand decline and global economic recession affect China’s oil supply as well. China has high oil vulnerability due to its rising oil import dependency which aggravates Beijing’s concerns about oil security, despite at a time of the pandemic-induced oil oversupply. This study uses the SWOT analytical model to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in China’s oil sector, and the changes in opportunities and threats caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has brought multiple impacts to China’s oil security. Results from the analysis show that the existing opportunities such as oil investments in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and domestic upstream opening-up have been weakened; new threats that the uncertainty over global oil demand-supply and decrease in global upstream investments have emerged; opportunities that an increase in domestic strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) and low-carbon development are rising amid the pandemic. Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of the global oil market to systemic risks and accelerated the transition to renewable energy.

The Multiple Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on China’s Oil Security and the Rising Green Opportunities

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously challenged the global oil market, and coronavirus-induced oil prices crash, oil demand decline and global economic recession affect China’s oil supply as well. China has high oil vulnerability due to its rising oil import dependency which aggravates Beijing’s concerns about oil security, despite at a time of the pandemic-induced oil oversupply. This study uses the SWOT analytical model to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in China’s oil sector, and the changes in opportunities and threats caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has brought multiple impacts to China’s oil security. Results from the analysis show that the existing opportunities such as oil investments in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and domestic upstream opening-up have been weakened; new threats that the uncertainty over global oil demand-supply and decrease in global upstream investments have emerged; opportunities that an increase in domestic strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) and low-carbon development are rising amid the pandemic. Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of the global oil market to systemic risks and accelerated the transition to renewable energy.

Zwitterionic Silica-Based Hybrid Nanoparticles for Filtration Control in Oil Drilling Conditions

Water-based drilling fluids (WBDFs) that are susceptible to high temperature and saline pollution always exhibit poor ability to control fluid loss and seriously threaten the operation security of oil well drilling; especially, ultradeep well WBDFs that can simultaneously tolerate high salinity and temperature of over 200 °C are difficult to obtain. Herein, a zwitterionic silica-based hybrid nanomaterial (ZSHNM) with a spherical morphology (50–150 nm) was synthesized, and its filtration performance was thoroughly investigated. ZSHNM showed an extraordinary long-term (≥10 months) dispersion stability even at high concentrations in water and possessed remarkable tolerance to high temperature and salinity. Typically, merely adding 2 wt % ZSHNM in WBDFs could achieve an excellent filtration performance even at 240 °C, and with 11 wt % CaCl2 or 36 wt % NaCl added, it showed the best performance to our knowledge. The results suggested that the sodium bentonite (Na-Bent) dispersion could be well stabilized in the presence of ZSHNM even at high temperature and with the presence of cations. Additionally, the silicate core could improve the thermal stability of ZSHNM, whereas the zwitterionic shell could form complexes with cations and further mitigate the aggregation of Na-Bent particles. Thus, the particle size distribution in WBDFs could be finely regulated similar to that in neat Na-Bent dispersion. Furthermore, given the zwitterionic ZSHNM filled in the micro–nanopores among the Na-Bent particles, a compact and low-permeability filter cake was readily formed and ultimately reduced the drilling fluid loss during the filtration process. This work provided a versatile strategy to address the high temperature and high salinity tolerance of WBDFs synchronously, thereby pioneering a new way to develop high-performance drilling additives for ultradeep and complex wells.

Oil for Pakistan: What are the main factors affecting the oil import?

Oil is the second largest primary source of energy supply in Pakistan, which is linked to numerous sectors. The existing study aims to calculate the crude oil import demand in Pakistan as a function of real income and the real price of crude oil from 1986 to 2018. We carried out the autoregressive distributive lag method to measure the robustness of price and income elasticities and forecasted crude oil import dependency analysis based on a fitting line from 1986 to 2035. The empirical outcomes of the study are first, the price and income elasticities are consistent with the theoretical prospects, which confirm that income elasticity is significant, while price elasticity is insignificant. Second, the positive growth of income elasticity is 0.21 proposes that imported crude oil in Pakistan is rising income level due to sectorial oil consumption. Third, the two-dimensional imported crude oil and forecasted oil dependency during 2019–2035 estimated that Pakistan's imported crude oil dependency would increase annually by 0.07 %, and 76 % dependency would reach until 2035. Finally, being a necessary product, the Government should support macroeconomic regulation and strengthen the mechanism of oil security and price regulations. Furthermore, the policy suggestions provided below will help Pakistan's policymakers respond appropriately.

Indian oilseed sector : Need for self-sufficiency in oilseed production

Oil crops are an ideal component in the sustainable production system in Indian agriculture. But, the area under oilseeds has experienced a deceleration in general, due to their relative lower profitability against competing crops like maize, cotton, chickpea, etc. under the prevailing crop growing and marketing situations. Despite being the fifth largest oilseed crop producing country in the world, India is also one of the largest importers of vegetable oils today. The country now imports nearly 60 per cent of the annual consumption of 259.22 million tonnes. However, increasing demand for edible oils necessitated the imports in large quantities leading to a substantial drain on foreign exchange. Edible oil consumption in the country has been consistently rising faster than production due to growth in population, increasing income levels and the emerging dietary changes are driving increasing use of edible oils. An immediate action towards this sector is utmost required or the dependency on import will certainly increase in the days to come due to mushrooming population and increased per capita consumption. It is, therefore, necessary to exploit domestic resources to maximize production to ensure edible oil security for the country.

Africa’s Oil Coast: Reflecting on Relations Among Gulf of Guinea Coast States

The Gulf of Guinea coast is a region endowed with petroleum resources and this has brought prominence to the region as major oil consumers and oil companies are found in the region. The region has become an alternative source of energy to the Middle East and demand for the region’s oil has continued to increase. Different countries make up the Gulf of Guinea with different colonial background, economic interest and levels of suspicion. This paper examines relations among these countries and its implication on their oil endowment and security. It suggests efforts that the Gulf of Guinea states can make to strengthen relations/cooperation among these states as this will enhance economic the development of the Gulf of Guinea coast.

Does high crude oil dependence influence Chinese military expenditure decision-making?

This paper employs the mixed frequency vector autoregression (MF-VAR) to discuss the causal link between crude oil dependence and military expenditure in China. The empirical results demonstrate that the crude oil dependence Granger causes military expenditure and accounts for 66.8% of the long-run forecast error variance decomposition. That means the MF-VAR model owns stronger explanatory and asymptotic powers than conventional VAR with single frequency data. Besides, the impulse-response analysis finds time varying relationship between crude oil dependence and military expenditure across four quarters within one year period. Therefore, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, especially its Navy, is needed to take responsibility and active activities to assure crude oil transport security. Government, enterprises and institutes should increase investment in military innovation to promote the upgrading of weapons and equipment. The peaceful rise strategy should be reasserted to construct harmonious international relations, which is helpful for crude oil security, foreign energy investment and reduce unnecessary military expenditure.

What factors contribute to the mutual dependence degree of China in its crude oil trading relationship with oil-exporting countries?

As Chinese dependence on foreign oil increases over years, oil security becomes one of the top concerns of policy makers. China’s initiative in its various crude oil trading relationships is closely related to its energy security. Therefore, it is helpful to explore factors that are correlated with Chinese activeness and passiveness in its oi trading relationships. This paper explores factors that possibly affect the position of China in its crude oil trading relationships which is quantified by the mutual dependence degree (MDD). The higher the MDD, the more active China is in its crude oil trading relationships. The results show that China has greatly diversified its crude oil import sources and has occupied an active position in its trading relationships with its major oil suppliers. In general, MDD is primarily determined by the oil consumption of China and the oil production of the oil-exporting country. In other words, one’s initiative in the oil trading relationship depends on how significant one is as an oil demander or an oil supplier.

Whether crude oil dependence and CO2 emissions influence military expenditure in net oil importing countries?

This paper investigates the cointegration relationship among crude oil dependence (COD), CO2 emissions (CO2) and military expenditure (ME) in net oil importing countries using a bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag model with a Fourier function (FARDL). The empirical results indicate that there is cointegration in China and India due to their rapid economic development, very high CO2 emissions, strong oil demand and growth in military strength. Italy has a high level of oil dependence and an oil-dominated energy structure and is closely located to the Middle East, leading its ME to be influenced by COD and CO2. However, military strategies and alliances, governmental budget constraints, and energy structure and policies eliminate the cointegration relationship in the U.S., France and other countries. Some policy implications include the need to diversify oil supply channels and build strategic reserves to relieve pressure on the military to protect oil security. Expenditures for military research and development should be encouraged, and the transfer of military technologies to civil fields to improve energy efficiency should be accelerated. Renewable energy development is an effective instrument for relieving pressure due to oil dependence and the need to reduce CO2.