Journal of Natural Resources, Volume. 35, Issue 11, 2655(2020)

The evolution of competition and cooperation in world crude oil flows from the perspective of complex networks and its enlightenment to China's oil cooperation

Si-you XIA1...2, Li-sha HAO1,*, Wen-min TANG1, Pan-pan CUI1 and Feng-lian WU1 |Show fewer author(s)
Author Affiliations
  • 1School of Geographical Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
  • 2Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
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    The scale and complexity of world crude oil flows are increasing. From the perspective of complex network analysis, we examine the relative status and their changes of the major trading countries and their corresponding geopolitical regions, and analyze the competition and cooperation between China and these geopolitical regions, which are conducive to a comprehensive review of the overall pattern, key cooperation countries, and possible model innovation of China's oil cooperation in terms of cooperation with exporting and importing geopolitical regions. The results show that: (1) World crude oil flows are still dominated by the main export geopolitical regions, and gradually evolved into the three dimensional competition patterns of Russia - Central Asia, the United States - Canada and the Middle East. However, the diversification and relative status changes of the exporting geopolitical regions also provide opportunities for the importing countries to adjust their cooperative relations. (2) The Asia-Pacific region has gradually become the focus of the competition and cooperation in the world crude oil flows. However, due to the lack of mutual exchange among the major importing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the overall status of the region and its control over the world crude oil flows have been lowered. Correspondingly, China is deeply trapped in the three major dilemmas of import decentralization, the game of major exporting countries and the check and balance of major importing countries. (3) In terms of cooperation with exporting geopolitical regions, China should focus on strengthening multilateral cooperation with Russia - Central Asia geopolitical region, appropriately strengthen bilateral cooperation with United States - Canada geopolitical region, and consolidate and balance diversified cooperation with the Middle East geopolitical region; as for Africa and Latin America, China should stabilize the existing cooperation and innovate the cooperation mode, such as bringing the output of China's oil investment in Africa to the international market, and encouraging China Petroleum Purchase Federation of Independent Refinery to cooperate with large oil trading companies to enter the Latin American oil market. In terms of cooperation with importing geopolitical regions, China should conduct internal mutual exchanges with importing countries in the Asia-Pacific region based on the import share coordination mechanism, diverse-source competition mechanism and the division and cooperation mechanism of the international trade center. The above oil cooperation is conducive to improving China's competition and cooperation environment in the world crude oil flows, ensuring the balance of oil supply and demand, and reducing supply risks.

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    Si-you XIA, Li-sha HAO, Wen-min TANG, Pan-pan CUI, Feng-lian WU. The evolution of competition and cooperation in world crude oil flows from the perspective of complex networks and its enlightenment to China's oil cooperation[J]. Journal of Natural Resources, 2020, 35(11): 2655

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    Paper Information

    Received: Jan. 7, 2020

    Accepted: --

    Published Online: May. 8, 2021

    The Author Email: HAO Li-sha (lisahull@163.com)

    DOI:10.31497/zrzyxb.20201108

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