The oil giants started another profit-giving carnival.

The wholesale price of refined oil has dropped, and the retail price has remained basically the same. Petrochemical giants, which account for half of the gas stations, have made huge profits. If the retail price of gas stations under China National Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec is still set at the national maximum price limit, the profit brought by the wholesale and retail price difference can reach up to 1,000 yuan/ton.

The cases of oil smuggling from overseas to the mainland have risen, which is when domestic oil prices are much higher than those outside the country. According to China News Service, in the early morning of July 28, Shantou Customs successfully seized an oil barge in the waters of Jiazigangzui, Shanwei, and seized about 20 tons of refined oil suspected of smuggling. The price difference between domestic and foreign refined oil continues to widen. At present, the price difference between domestic and foreign refined oil is as high as 2,400 yuan/ton. The prominent supply and demand contradiction and large profit margins have led to the active smuggling of refined oil.

Oil giants are not ignorant of the world and do not understand the style of the international oil market. Due to competition with international companies, Sinopec's market prices in Hong Kong have been adjusted many times, and they lowered gasoline prices twice on May 9 and July 2, but they remained unmoved in the mainland market and discriminated against foreign markets internally because domestic rules put corporate interests first.

The domestic oil market has formed a one-stop monopoly, through import and property rights policies, upstream petrochemical giants monopolize oil sources.

The "Notice of the General Office of the State Council forwarding the opinions of the State Economic and Trade Commission and other departments on cleaning up and rectifying small oil refineries and regulating the circulation order of crude oil refined oil" issued in May 1999 stipulates that "crude oil imports are controlled by two major oil groups, and all refined oil produced by domestic refineries must be handed over to the wholesale enterprises of the petroleum group and petrochemical group. Other enterprises and units are not allowed to operate wholesale, and all refineries are not allowed to sell themselves."

my country's crude oil imports are divided into state-owned trade and non-state-owned trade. The import rights of state-owned trade are concentrated in the hands of five major oil state-owned enterprises, Sinopec, CNOOC, Sinochem, and Zhuhai Zhenrong. In addition to the four major oil giants, Zhuhai Zhenrong Company is a trading company specializing in military products and oil. According to the agreement signed when my country joined the WTO, my country has allowed some other enterprises to engage in importing crude oil with non-state-owned trade since 2002. As of mid-2002, there were 22 enterprises with non-state-owned qualifications, most of which were oil-based in the name of non-state-owned trade.

Import trade is a state-owned enterprise, including some subsidiaries of CNPC and Sinopec. If enterprises outside CNPC and Sinopec system import crude oil, they must hold the "production scheduling" certificate issued by these two major groups, and the customs will release it, and the railway department will arrange transportation plans. In addition, after importing crude oil, it must be resold to the two major groups, and the sales will be arranged uniformly. In fact, the import of China's crude oil and the pricing power is in the hands of CNPC and Sinopec. Therefore, China's oil security, oil import volume, and whether there will be an oil shortage, everything is in the hands of oil giants.

Downstream, oil giants monopolize wholesale rights and erode the retail market.

According to the provisions of the State Council [2001] No. 72 document of August 2001, "New gas stations built in various regions are uniformly wholly owned or controlled by the Petroleum Group and Petrochemical Group." In June 2005, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Technical Specifications for Management of Finished Oil Wholesale Enterprises (Draft for Comments)", which stipulates that refined oil wholesale enterprises must "own more than 30 owned or controlled gas stations", and most private enterprises do not meet this qualification. Taking Heilongjiang Province as an example, none of the 1,670 private gas stations in the province meet the requirements.

According to last year's data, my country's private oil companies have 60,000 gas stations in the retail industry, accounting for about 53% of the national retail share. There are more than 60 private refineries, basically distributed in Shandong, Guangdong and western regions, with a refining capacity of nearly 100 million tons per year. However, due to the lack of oil supply and insufficient start-up, the actual refining volume is about 50 million tons.

The expansion of oil giants into the downstream retail market is very consistent with the time of listing. Investors have used their own funds to create giant oil giants, shaking consumers' own necks. Our oil policies seem to be specially set up for oil giants, and our stock market allows oil giants to monopolize the upstream and downstream sufficient funds.

When international oil prices rise, oil giants obtain profits by monopolizing oil sources, creating oil shortages to force private enterprises to be eliminated; when international oil prices fall, oil giants obtain refining returns and harvest wool through the wholesale and retail price difference. CNOOC, Yanchang Petroleum and other companies cannot break through the monopoly market, but can only break out of tiny cracks.

The result is serious unless crude oil prices in the international market drop significantly, oil giants can ignore market price changes and consumer interests at any time. The stronger the monopoly power, the more discriminate against consumers, and the smaller the monopoly power, the more respectful it will be to consumers.

We cannot rely on the conscience discovery of monopoly giants, we cannot rely on experts in the system that are closely related to monopoly giants, we can only rely on small breakthroughs in the market itself, calling for a major breakthrough in the institutional nature of policies and capital markets.
Chapter completed!