Matching is needed for the overall opening and implementation of oil and gas

The Ministry of natural resources recently held a press conference in Beijing to introduce the recently issued opinions on Several Issues concerning the promotion of mineral resource management reform (Trial) (hereinafter referred to as the opinions), and said that China will fully open the oil and gas exploration and exploitation market, allowing private enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises and other capital from all walks of life to enter the field of oil and gas exploration and exploitation. As soon as the news came out, it immediately aroused wide discussion in the industry. Experts said that this is a major advantage in the upstream field of oil and gas in China, but further implementation still needs supporting policies. It is understood that the opinions mainly include the reform of mining right transfer system, oil and gas exploration and exploitation management and reserves management, with 11 specific reform contents. Among them, there are two major reforms in the management of oil and gas exploration and exploitation. First, domestic and foreign-funded companies registered in the people's Republic of China with a net asset of no less than 300 million yuan are qualified to obtain oil and gas mining rights in accordance with regulations, including foreign-funded enterprises and private enterprises.

The second is to implement the system of integration of oil and gas exploration and production. According to the technical characteristics of exploration and exploitation of oil and gas different from non oil and gas minerals, and in view of the problems existing for many years, if the oil and gas exploration right holder discovers the oil and gas resources available for exploitation, he can carry out exploitation after reporting to the competent natural resources department with registration authority. The exploration right holders of the oil, gas and mineral resources to be exploited shall sign a contract for the assignment of the mining right within five years and register the mining right in accordance with the law. Zhang Dawei, a researcher at the consultation and research center of the Ministry of natural resources, said in an interview that the opening up of the oil and gas exploration and exploitation market in an all-round way will help more market competitors enter the upstream oil and gas fields of China and improve the efficiency of oil and gas exploration and exploitation. In terms of the reform of the mining right transfer system, the opinion points out that it is necessary to comprehensively promote the competitive transfer of mining right, and make it clear that in addition to the agreement transfer, other mining rights will be sold openly through bidding, auction and listing.

"In order to achieve good results in the competitive transfer of mining rights, it is also necessary for the state to issue a sound supporting policy for the transfer of mining rights." Feng Liwen, President of China energy. In fact, the pilot work of mining right bidding has been tried for a long time in China, but at present, the result of practice is far from the expectation. It is understood that 83 enterprises participated in bidding in the second round of shale gas bidding in 2012, including 16 enterprises winning 19 blocks; 13 enterprises participating in bidding in the first round of conventional oil and gas bidding in Xinjiang in 2015, including 3 enterprises winning 4 blocks; while in December 2017, only 7 enterprises participated in the second round of regular oil and gas block transfer, winning 3 blocks. The enthusiasm of market participants has declined. "The poor resource conditions in the bidding block and the inability to share geological exploration data are the important factors restricting the development of new entrants." Zhang Dawei said that due to the failure of the three major oil companies to share geological data of some oil and gas blocks, the bid winner could not get the geological data, and had to spend a lot of manpower, material resources, financial resources and time to repeat the previous geological data collection work of oil companies, affecting the progress of the actual work.