According to data from the National Development and Reform Commission, the apparent consumption of natural gas in China was 8.8 billion cubic meters in August, and imports were about 1.77 billion cubic meters, an increase of 1.9 times year-on-year. Although the gas transmission capacity from Sichuan to East China and the Central Asian region has been improved, due to the large demand, there is still pressure to supply this winter. At present, the price of imported natural gas in Central Asia is significantly higher than the domestic sales price, and CNPC has incurred a huge loss. ("September 26")

Imported natural gas prices are significantly higher than domestic sales prices. PetroChina Group has suffered huge losses, and this winter's supply is under pressure... These few words have been combined together, or they have issued some signals that the price of natural gas will be raised again. In fact, this is not an excessive suspicion. There have been many places where the price of natural gas has successfully achieved price increases.

“Rising prices” are sensitive, but the huge losses incurred by CNPC in natural gas are also facts. For a long time, natural gas imported from Central Asia has approached the border of China when it has approached the sales price of natural gas in the domestic cities. Coupled with long-distance pipeline transportation, the petrochemical giants are suffering a corresponding cost loss. This is not a hypocrite. Not out of nothing. According to statistics, the price of natural gas in the world is equivalent to 60% of the equivalent calorific value of crude oil, while the price of natural gas in China is equivalent to a quarter of the value of equivalent calorific value of crude oil, and one-third of the price of fuel oil is less than half the price of imported natural gas. .

The real problem is that, as it is, how has CNPC, which has suffered huge losses, still cause trepidation? On the surface, it is very condescending. In fact, it is not difficult to understand the details.

The first thing to clarify is that the domestic resource industry is a monopoly or semi-monopoly market. The petrochemical industry is a highly monopolized industry. The price of a monopoly product is not regulated spontaneously by supply and demand, and it cannot reflect the real situation of the market. In other words, losses due to “natural gas upside down” cannot affect the petrochemical giants’ monopoly level even higher than that of the electric power industry. From mining and transportation to sales, the entire industrial chain and operating links are held in the hands of petrochemical giants, and other In a sense, the “loss of natural gas” tolerated was not a loss in the real market sense compared to the huge profits from the link.

Water, electricity, oil, natural gas and other resource products have natural public properties. The level of its price represents the level of public welfare. Obviously, despite the “upside-down” of natural gas prices, the prices of resource products cannot be called low compared with the public consumption forces that are still in place. With the rising prices of resource products, there are always too many feasible economic data. However, public living costs are not included in the scope of energy price reform. The absence of people’s capital in the reform of energy prices or the lack of “share” is inextricably linked to monopolistic price discourse. At present, the public’s right to speak and supervise in energy prices is limited to a single form of price hearing, and the hearing itself is a kind of “listen-up meeting”.

The price increase is not a goal. The existence of price leverage is a solution to the supply of public energy resources products. The goal is to establish a fair and orderly energy market. This requires the public to have more say and decision power. In my opinion, it is necessary to establish a price coordination mechanism that the government, enterprises, and consumers jointly participate in. It cannot continue to allow petrochemical giants to “speak oneself” and self-referential. This issue is not resolved. PetroChina is destined to accept the sensational opposition.