2012: China's energy price reform accelerates the release of new signals

Enhance the on-grid tariff, publicize the trial scheme for residents' ladder price, and launch trials on natural gas price reform in Guangdong and Guangxi... At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, a new round of energy product price reform programs were successively introduced.

The recently concluded Central Economic Work Conference proposed that "we must comprehensively reform the resource tax system," and "we must improve the mechanism for the formation of crude oil refined oil prices, and gradually straighten out the relationship between coal and electricity prices." This shows that China's energy reform is accelerating toward the direction of marketization. The search for a balance between public utilities and market opening will become the key to reform.

Fairness: How Reforms Break Through Monopoly This is an important step in China's resource price reform. Since December 26, 2011, China has carried out pilot reforms of natural gas price formation mechanisms in Guangdong and Guangxi. The overall idea is to change the current pricing method based on "cost plus" to "market net return" pricing.

Wang Zhen, Dean of the School of Business Administration of China University of Petroleum, said that the biggest highlight of this natural gas price reform is to shift from cost-oriented to market-oriented. All along, low natural gas prices in China have amplified irrational demand, and chemical projects such as methanol and chemical fertilizers have developed rapidly in recent years. Experts said that after the new mechanism is gradually established, it will help to make full use of price levers to guide the rational allocation of natural gas resources, and some development models with high energy consumption and low added value should be adjusted.

The gradual establishment of price formation mechanisms that reflect the degree of resource scarcity, market supply and demand conditions, and environmental governance costs is the future direction of price reform of resource products. In recent years, according to this direction of reform, China has actively and steadily pushed forward price reforms for important resource products such as water, electricity, oil, and gas. Using price levers to guide the rational allocation of resources, domestic energy price reforms will begin to accelerate this year, and the primary breakthrough is to break the monopoly.

Resource-based products tend to have natural monopoly. On the one hand, different links in the same energy industry chain, some are earning money, others are long-term losses; on the other hand, with the sound of continuous reforms over the years, almost Accompanied by the upward price increase curve all along, the public was questioned that “reform is equal to price increase”. In particular, when the international oil price was substantially reduced last year, domestic oil prices are still “it is difficult for prices to fall”.

For a long time, China's natural gas, electricity and other industries have formed natural monopolistic industrial organizations and have monopolized the special status of the industry, causing unfair competition in the market. PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC also formed a market monopoly in the oil and gas sector.

During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the monopoly structure in the energy sector will loosen, and gradual reforms in some areas of marketization and pricing mechanisms will become the main ideas for energy reform. In the refined oil market, the downstream sales market for refined oil will be promoted and the marketization process will be accelerated in the possible areas.

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission’s “combination boxing” of reforms to “supply prices for coal prices” has highlighted the orientation of fairness, which has not only inhibited the price rises of coal companies, but also relieved huge loss-making power generation companies and temporarily eased long-term Tangled coal and electricity contradiction.

Some experts said that "the reform of resource prices is not a feast for the monopoly enterprises to make profits. We must strive to share the reform results with the people. This is the voice of the people."

Wang Zhen believes that the fairness of energy price reform in the future will focus on two aspects: First, to ensure full competition, and second, on the basis of full competition, there should be a reasonable taxation system in all links of the industrial chain.

More transparency: how to rationalize the pricing mechanism In 2011, there was frequent imbalance between supply and demand in China's energy market. From the beginning of the year, the “electricity shortage” and “coal shortage” to the second half of the “diesel shortage” continued. In the "shortage" of energy that sweeps across the country, the root cause of the problem is the energy pricing mechanism.

"Power shortage" come from? Experts pointed out that the continuous increase in the price of electric coal, electricity prices can not move, resulting in the more power generation more power losses. "Accelerating the rationalization of the price of coal and electricity, and increasing the intensity of trans-regional transportation and construction of electric power is the only way to fundamentally avoid the "electricity shortage." Yang Zonglin, a senior engineer of East China Power Grid, believes.

The "oil shortage" is also the same. Since July of last year, domestic diesel has been in short supply. After the fourth quarter, all parts of the country have been caught in a situation of “tight diesel supply” and the country’s “piling upside down” situation. At the time, oil prices in the international market fell by more than 4% all the way to meet the conditions for the cut in oil prices. The reduction in domestic oil prices further exacerbated the “oil shortage”.

In this regard, Dong Xiucheng, deputy dean of the School of Business Administration of China University of Petroleum, said that this strange phenomenon shows that China's current refined oil pricing mechanism is not perfect, only linked to the international oil market, but does not consider the domestic supply and demand relationship, leading to price distortions, The "diesel shortage" is still at the root of the price mechanism.

Cracking the frequent "energy shortages" is also a "deepwater area" that this year's domestic energy price reform must touch. According to industry experts, one of the difficulties in current reform is that the government has no clear concept of the cost structure of energy companies. Recalling the course from policy-based low prices to market-based pricing, some resource-based price reforms do not seem to be able to escape the vicious circle of “price increases as soon as reform is implemented”.

Lin Boqiang, director of the Energy Economics Research Center at Xiamen University, pointed out that "unclear costs and incomplete cost structures are major obstacles to the sustainability of the energy industry." Energy pricing should allow energy companies to recover costs and certain profits, but also requires the government's cost to energy companies. With strict supervision of profits, the government carries out cost assessment based on energy consumption categories, calculates the costs of various consumer groups, confirms subsidized groups, and quantifies energy subsidies.

Regardless of how energy reforms are carried out, it is the first step to verifying the operating costs of energy companies. This is essential to rationalizing the pricing mechanism. Wu Libo, executive deputy director of the Center for Energy Economics and Strategic Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, believes that the purpose of the reform is not price hikes, let alone price hikes in the name of reform. The purpose of energy market reform is to curb monopolies, monopolist profits and business information should be further disclosed At the same time, private capital should be introduced to participate in competition, because the introduction of private capital is actually a process of publicizing profits.

Public welfare: to find a balance between the market and the people's livelihood At the end of November last year, the National Development and Reform Commission announced that the current single-resident electricity price should be changed to different electricity tariffs according to the user's electricity consumption. The electricity price will be stepwise step by step with the increase in electricity consumption. Increasing, while the government will subsidize low-income families. According to calculations, this program will make 80% of the nation’s household electricity expenditures not increase, and only 5% of households that consume the most electricity will increase significantly.

This reform measures not only protects basic people's livelihood, but also reflects energy saving and emission reduction, and inhibits the original intention of wasting valuable energy. One of the difficulties in current energy price reforms is to find a balance between marketization and the protection of people’s livelihood. On the one hand, China's current main energy consumption is still dominated by fossils, and it is non-renewable, and as resources become more and more tense, price increases are a major trend. On the other hand, energy is basic livelihood protection. How to operate safely?

At a local gas price adjustment hearing attended by reporters, some experts pointed out that some basic energy sources such as gas are low-income groups. Although energy price leverage is good for inhibiting waste, it may also hurt low-income groups. People's livelihood guarantees, so energy prices can not be cut across the board, "to people's daily necessities, pricing must consider their affordability, we must steadily advance."

"Energy price reform is imperative, but the most worrying aspect is that it gradually deviates from government supervision after the realization of marketization." Wu Libo believes that in the reform process of resource prices, we must balance the relationship between public welfare and marketization, if the public welfare is The disappearance of marketization has damaged the interests of low-income earners and violated the original intention of the reform.

Experts said that as far as some domestic energy price reform measures are concerned, there are mainly two ways of embodying public welfare. The first is to separate the prices of civilian and non-residents. The rise in non-resident prices reflects marketization, and the price of residents is adjusted steadily to ensure people’s livelihood. The second is to establish a ladder price, that is, to protect basic people's livelihood, but also inhibit waste. In the long run, it is imperative for civil energy to develop a ladder price, and it is also operational.