International Oil Prices Plummeted 20%, Domestic Oil Prices Remain Calm

On the evening of 12, the New York Mercantile Exchange's September light crude oil futures closed at $85.38 a barrel.

Price reduction

International oil price falls 20%

Since late July,

Since August, a series of bad news has come out, causing a panic of oil prices.

In the view of Liu Yaqin, senior analyst at China International Futures, the international oil price in the three quarter may continue to be weak. The price of W TI will be 80 dollars per barrel, and Brent will have some support near the point of 90 US dollars to 95 US dollars per barrel, but it will not rule out the possibility of breaking down the support point.

Feng Zhen, manager of the oil products Department of the East oil and gas network, also told reporters that the index of manufacturing and service industries released by the US at the beginning of the month showed that economic growth was almost stagnant.

Although the US debt default crisis has been averted for the time being, the positive effects of the US debt ceiling increase on the market have been rapidly digested, and investors' panic over future economic worries has dominated the market.

In the next period of time, oil prices are hard to get rid of the negative effects of this panic.

and

At the same time, due to the impact of international oil prices falling for several consecutive days, Sinopec Hongkong oil station company announced that it lowered the price of gasoline and diesel in the early morning of August 10th, and the price of gasoline and diesel decreased by HK $0.1 and HK $0.18 respectively. After the adjustment, Hongkong's two kinds of gasoline super gasoline and gasoline were 17.34 Hong Kong dollars and 16.4 Hong Kong dollars per litre respectively, and diesel oil was HK $11.6 per litre.

It is worth noting that this is the fourth price adjustment of Sinopec Hongkong since May.

Firm

Domestic oil prices are "unmoved" in a strong downward trend.

"Economic reference daily" reporters previously in Shandong, Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Hebei and other places were informed that the local private gas stations and foreign gas stations have already launched a promotional price cuts.

Taking 93# gasoline as an example, most of the research sites of the reporter dropped by more than 0.2 yuan / liter, and some petrol stations in Shanghai, Beijing, Shandong and other places cut their prices by 0.4 yuan / liter.

A general manager of Hebei private enterprise with many gas stations told the economic reference daily in early August that we all felt that the possibility of reducing oil prices in the near future was very large, and we simply sold the stocks on sale.

However, he has not yet waited for the time to cut down oil prices. On the contrary, the NDRC believes that domestic oil products have not yet reached the conditions for downgrading.

The head of the price department of the State Development and Reform Commission said 8 days ago that the international market oil prices were down sharply, but for the time being, they did not meet the boundary conditions for reducing the price of domestic refined oil products.

If international oil prices continue to fluctuate at the current price or continue to fall in the future, the average price of the three crude oil in the international market referenced by the domestic oil price adjustment will fall to 4% of the boundary conditions, and the state will promptly reduce the domestic refined oil price.

Reporters noted that, according to the current oil price formation mechanism, that is, the international market Brent, Dubai, Xin three crude oil price continuous 22 working days, the average mobile price changes of more than 4%, the price of refined oil can be adjusted accordingly.

According to interest energy monitoring, as of August 11th, Brent, Xin TA and Dubai three crude oil weighted average price change rate was 0.78%, did not meet the downward adjustment conditions.

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Why can Hongkong adjust the price of refined oil in time when the international oil price falls?

Reporters learned that Sinopec lowered the price of gasoline and diesel in Hongkong at the same time, Shell Hongkong also announced that it will adjust its gasoline and diesel retail price from August 10th, the same price as the Sinopec.

Liu Kaiyin, manager of Shell retail business in Hongkong, said the price adjustment was due to a fall in Singapore FOB price of gasoline.

The FOB price of Singapore is the reference standard for the spot price of gasoline in the Asia Pacific region.

Sinopec has cut its oil price for the two time in May 9th and July 2nd.

In July 27th, oil prices were raised.

Many people in the industry say that there are many oil products retailers in Hongkong, such as Shell, Sinopec and so on. They are completely open markets, and their prices are adjusted by the company independently according to market changes.

Query

The current pricing mechanism is retarded.

Many industry experts said in an interview with reporters that domestic oil prices lagged behind the trend of international oil prices and derailed the market.

Dong Xiucheng, vice president of the school of business administration, China University of Petroleum, believes that China's current pricing mechanism for refined oil products is still at a pitional stage and has exposed a series of problems since it has been running for more than two years.

First of all, the price adjustment period is too long, resulting in price adjustment often lagging behind the operation of international oil prices.

Secondly, many times the price adjustment is not in place, causing difficulties for the next price adjustment.

"Due to the lack of pparency in the whole process of oil price adjustment in China, on the one hand, the measures taken by the state to control the increase during the time of inflation are not understood by consumers. On the other hand, when the international oil price is falling, the international oil price has dropped sharply and the domestic price adjustment window has not been opened because of the current price adjustment period, which also causes consumers to misunderstand the previous price adjustment.

Dong Xiucheng told the economic reference Daily reporter.

Dong Xiucheng, for example, should raise the price to 8 yuan / liter according to the normal measurement price, while the state narrowed the gains by taking into account some factors, only to 7.1 yuan / liter.

In this way, if the international crude oil price goes down in the later stage, and when the reference price adjustment is reduced to 7.5 yuan / liter, it is possible that there will be no downgrading conditions based on the current domestic level below the international level.

This embarrassment is even reflected in the fact that many times the window has not been raised or lagged behind, causing the country to face more pressure when it is facing a downward window.

Some people in the industry pointed out that after August, although the international oil price dropped nearly 20% in the short term, it did not rise because of the increase in May.

The insiders of PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC have pointed out to the economic reference daily that the "oil price management measures" (that is, the current pricing mechanism) has stipulated that "no mention or mention in principle", "independent retail price" and "refined oil prices can be adjusted accordingly", but they are all too vague, and the discretionary power in practice is too large for the industry to make clear expectations.

"One is lagging behind, compared with the mature market abroad, China's price adjustment cycle is longer, and the market response is not sensitive enough; two, the ambiguity is stipulated, leaving the space for the relevant parties to not strictly enforce the price adjustment behavior. The adjustment is not adjusted and the price adjustment is not in place."

Insiders from three big oil companies have two disadvantages to the pricing mechanism of the "economic reference daily" reporter. He also used seesaw to compare the interests of oil companies and consumers on oil prices repeatedly. Under the background of the rising trend of international oil prices, oil companies felt that the oil price was not in place and not on time, and consumers felt that "rising or falling".