Potential evolution of the global energy strategy landscape

International Energy News: The energy issue has always been an important factor in the global strategic landscape. On the one hand, non-renewable oil and natural gas have become essential basic strategic materials for modern industry; on the other hand, due to the structural contradiction between the distribution of resources and the separation of demand, energy politics with oil and natural gas as the core has been in place for over a century. It has always been closely linked with international relations. Competition around oil and gas resources, markets, and channels has always been the main content of the evolution of international energy resources. Even in the post-cold-war era, countries in the world, especially the U.S.-led Western countries, have not lost their competition for oil and gas resources, and their politicization of energy issues has become more intensified. They have often become an important goal of foreign countries’ demands for diplomacy, and they have even clashed for oil and gas resources. ,war. From the 1991 Gulf War to today’s Libya crisis, it is not difficult to see the energy behind it. The global energy strategy pattern closely related to the evolution of international relations today is still in the process of adjustment and change, showing the following characteristics.

First, with the acceleration of the process of economic globalization after the Cold War, the globalization of the energy market is also strengthening. The interdependence between regions and countries in the world, both energy consumers and producers, as well as between domestic and domestic producers, has deepened, prompting energy relations between countries to move forward from the early “zero-sum game”. The model transformation of "interdependence and cooperation". The parties are paying more and more attention to the international cooperation in the field of energy and the construction of international mechanisms, and seek to achieve common energy security through international cooperation and coordination.

Second, due to the limited nature of oil and gas resources and their uneven distribution, the role of energy factors in international relations continues to emerge. From the exploration, development, refinement, and use of energy in the energy sector, around the objectives of resource production, transportation channels, and sales markets, international energy competition based on oil and natural gas is further intensified. The realism of the law of the jungle still exists, and the politicization of energy issues will be strengthened. Conflicts and conflicts of interest between energy consuming countries, resource countries, and transit countries have become an eye-catching and important content of geopolitical economic competition in the world. The Gulf-centered Middle East region is the world’s richest oil resource and the region with the greatest growth potential for oil and gas exploration in the world. Naturally, it has become the world’s most intensely competitive area for fossil fuels; in addition, it is located in the Central Asia-Caspian Sea, Asia-Pacific region, and West Africa. North and Central America and other places in North Africa, as well as in Venezuela and the Gulf of Mexico, form a complex competitive situation in which the United States seeks to lead and Russia, the European Union, and the Asia-Pacific countries meet each other in a variety of forces. The state is not only the main body of world energy cooperation, but also the main body of competition.

Third, major energy companies are still important international actors in the current international energy landscape. The six giants of Western multinational energy companies such as Exxon Mobil continue to restructure and merge, continue to control more than 80% of the world's high-quality oil and gas resources, and earn huge monopoly profits with the support of the home country's government. At the same time, they become the main tools for home countries to implement external energy strategies. It is still the main monopoly of the current world energy market. At the same time, the national energy companies in developing countries and transition countries of the former Soviet Union have also increased their international status and actual influence. They support both national economic construction and social development, maintain national energy security, and have used state capital to develop overseas resources. The energy business has the basic characteristics of representing and safeguarding national rights and interests and serving the country’s overall interests. Its position in the construction and operation of the international energy order has been continuously enhanced and its role should not be underestimated.

Fourth, although the powerful US and European developed countries still control and consume most of the world’s oil and gas resources, since the beginning of the new century, the world’s economic growth center has changed, and Asia has increasingly become the engine of the world’s economy, which has accordingly become a global growth in energy consumption. The fastest and most important area. In contrast, with the adjustment of economic structure, the wave of energy conservation and emission reduction, and the development of new energy sources, the energy consumption intensity in Europe, the United States, Japan, and other countries has been decreasing year after year, especially the fossil fuel energy consumption demand has shown a clear downward trend. The consumption pattern of international oil and gas resources is being readjusted globally.

Fifth, since the turn of the century, the international oil market structure and price formation mechanism have changed significantly. The US dollar-denominated oil and gas exchange market has achieved tremendous development. The U.S. dollar is closely related to the trend of oil prices. The impact of financial capital on the international oil market has increased rapidly. The characteristics of petroleum financialization and the speculative nature of the oil market have become increasingly prominent. The speculative speculation of Wall Street financial capital is the main driver of the soaring international oil price in 2008. In addition, the turmoil and chaos in the situation of major energy sources, as well as international terrorism on energy security, are mainly increasing the safety of oil and gas production and transportation. The factors that affect international energy security are becoming more diversified and complex.

Sixth, at least in the next 20 to 30 years, traditional fossil fuel oil, gas and coal will remain the world's major energy consumption varieties, and oil is the world's "first energy source." With the maturation of unconventional natural gas development and utilization technologies, natural gas will become the intermediate stage of transition from oil to new energy era. Although clean renewable energy sources have a relatively limited share of global energy consumption for a considerable period of time, the scarcity, non-renewability, and pollution of traditional fossil energy, the ever-increasing world environmental protection movement, and the continual emergence of sustainable development issues in the earth, Promoting renewable energy as a substitute for fossil energy, superior energy as a substitute for scarce energy and new energy as a substitute for traditional energy have become an inevitable trend in the international energy consumption pattern. Guided by advanced Western economies, more and more countries are paying attention to energy conservation and emission reduction. A new technology that is characterized by a low-carbon economy is quietly coming. Different groups of countries are pursuing global climate governance issues and the development and utilization of new energy. This shows that all parties in the world are planning for a new global competition system in the era of low-carbon economy and seizing opportunities.

Seventh, after the Iraq war, the international energy sector has entered a new phase of the United States' global deployment and strives to lead. The United States is fighting for oil and gas both to ensure domestic demand and to have more control over strategic resources to maintain its dominance in the world. As a result, the United States not only succeeded in bridging the Middle East and Central Asia with its geopolitical strategy, but also sought to control and dominate the two major energy pools of the Gulf and the Caspian Sea. While the United States is attacking all directions and trying to control the global energy leader, major oil and gas importing countries such as Japan and Europe are actively seeking to diversify their oil imports, improve strategic petroleum reserves, and carry out energy restructuring. Russia, with its resource advantage of 13% of the world's oil and 1/3 of its natural gas resources, strives to exert greater influence on the international energy strategy. It will export oil and gas resources as an important weight to safeguard its political and diplomatic interests.

Finally, we must emphasize that the current energy strategy implemented by the United States to control the world’s oil and gas resources and to control the international oil and gas market runs counter to the general trend of the development of the world’s oil and gas markets. Under the background of globalization, the future world oil and gas market will inevitably develop in the direction of integration. Whether the oil and gas exporting countries or the consumer countries, through dialogue and cooperation, all parties in the market will further adjust their strategic policies, comply with market rules, and stabilize the world’s oil and gas markets and internationally. Energy prices, and the construction and improvement of various regional energy cooperation mechanisms, will further promote the construction of a rational and stable global energy market. Under the new international energy pattern, the common interests and contradictions between resource countries and consumer countries are intertwined with each other, and the dependence is increasing. Competition and coordination will become the mainstream of the international energy strategy pattern.

The profound and major changes that are taking place in the global energy strategy pattern have an impact that cannot be underestimated on the 21st century international system and the development trend of the world economy. As far as the rising wave of international new energy development strategies is concerned, it will have a far-reaching impact both on the transformation of the current world economic and political system and on the arrival of the era of low-carbon economy and the new round of science and technology of humanity. The energy conservation and emission reduction, international climate governance and new energy wave have guided the development of the global strategic energy pattern in the 21st century.