JLC (Guangzhou), February 26, 2019--On February 25, JLC London Oil and Gas Forum successfully kick-started IP Week London (International Petroleum Week) with an overwhelming attendance from global oil and gas professionals. 

    Oil and gas giants gathered at this forum to discuss the latest market trends of and the outlook for crude, oil products and LNG in China. Meanwhile, our senior management and subject matter experts shared the latest analysis and insights with the delegates and opened up a floor of interactive dialogue session with them.

    Mr. Roger Chen Gang, JLC's Vice President, gave a speech about the history, status quo of and prospects for China's energy industry.

    China recorded marvelous annual economic growth of 9.5% during the 40 years of reform and opening up to the world up till 2018, which could be ranked among the few economic miracles after the Industrial Revolution, Roger said, “China's GDP per capita was 9,777 US dollars in 2018, surging from 156 US dollars 40 years before. There had been drastic changes in every industry and every sector. What about the energy industry? What marvels had it done?”

    "In 2000 when China joined the World Trade Organization, fuel oil, which had been mainly used as bunker fuel, was given a new play in China as independent refiners started to consume straight-run fuel oil. For global fuel oil traders, this brought them over 10 years of golden trading and the premium of straight-run fuel oil surged from around $8/mt in 2000 to $140/mt in 2012.”

    "China started to grant independent refiners quotas for crude imports in 2015, which prompted Chinese fuel oil traders that worked at multinational companies to switch to crude oil. PetroChina's and Sinopec's employees at the forefront of trading, analysis and risk management became much more valuable. And Shandong, which boasts a large number of independent refiners, became well known among foreigners that paid attention to China’s energy market…”, Roger said. “All these changes were observed, analyzed and recorded by JLC, collected in its 'Big Data System'."

    As the first industrial veteran that joined a Chinese information company after leaving a multinational oil corporation, Roger proved the power of the market with a book titled “Review of China's Information Industry in 26 Years and Prospects”. He has also presented hypotheses and deduction for the market up till 2026.

    Also at the forum, Amanda Zhao, General Manager for JLC Global Sales and Marketing, gave a speech that focused on China’s energy industry development trend in 2019. Amanda expected China's crude refining capacity to surge, with new refining-chemical complexes such as Hengli Petrochemical's and Zhejiang Petrochemical's refineries coming online. China is expected to add more than 400 million mt/year of refining capacity by 2025 as refining projects on the seven major petrochemical bases become operational, according to Amanda. In the meantime, China's diesel and gasoline demand growth will be slow, at 1% and 3-4%, respectively, in part due to rapid development of alternative energy. As supply grows faster than demand, Chinese refiners will have to export more oil products in view of the domestic supply glut. China's exports of oil products are expected to exceed 80 million mt in 2025, Amanda said. In addition, as the Chinese government is pushing forward the market-oriented reform of the domestic oil product market and opening the export market, the country will boost supply outside Asia.

    Tony Zhou, Marketing Director of JLC Global, with nearly 20 years of experience in geological exploration at France's Total upstream division, answered questions about China's shale gas blocks at the forum.

Meanwhile, Rosa Luo, a senior consultant with JLC, gave a speech about the outlook of China's liquefied natural gas (LNG) market, making predictions from the supply and demand perspective on the country's natural gas market and LNG imports in the next five years. Rosa also analyzed policies on the interconnection of China's natural gas pipeline networks, the opening of LNG terminals to third-parties and the country's policy on switching from the use of coal to gas, as well as the construction of LNG infrastructures like receiving terminals and storage tank farms.

    The Q&A Session and Panel Discussion was hosted by Charles, an expert with more than 40 years of experience in the petroleum, shipping and natural gas market.