First of all, the national oil companies that develop oil exporting countries are established on the basis of nationalization of the oil industry. Their main task is to take over all foreign oil companies on behalf of the government, manage their assets, and then develop their own oil industry to serve the revitalization of national economy and social development.
Second, countries that rely on oil imports set up national oil companies in order to break the control of foreign oil companies on their own oil supply and monopolize their own oil market, and strategically protect their own oil supply.
Third, oil and gas resource countries set up national oil companies to deal with foreign oil companies on behalf of the government, to be entrusted by the government to manage oil assets, and to recover oil and gas resources that were once occupied cheaply by western oil companies.
The role of national oil companies tends to develop and obey the specific policies of the government at that time. For example, the national oil companies in developing countries often start their business activities from the low-tech field of the oil industry, that is, the sales part; Then it extends to similar fields with complex technology, such as oil refining; Finally, it will enter the exploration and production in the highest technology field. This has become a typical model of state-owned oil companies in developing countries.
From a global perspective, the scale and strength of national oil companies have been strengthened in recent decades. During this period, due to the different national conditions, for various reasons such as improving oil production efficiency, safeguarding national oil interests and solving their own investment shortage, national oil companies have two different development trends: privatization and strengthening state control.
Since 1980s, the privatization of oil fields has risen from Europe and spread to the whole oil field. Britain took the lead in the transition to privatization, abolished the British national oil company and turned to privatization. The trend of privatization has accelerated and expanded rapidly, involving Repsol, Total, Elf-aquitaine, Singapore Oil Company, Petronas Canada, Petronas Peru and Eni Italy to varying degrees.
There are two trends in the privatization movement of petroleum industry. One is the privatization of the oil industry similar to that of Britain and Argentina, where the government gave up control of its own oil industry, state capital withdrew from the oil industry, and the national oil company was cancelled. The other is the privatization of national oil companies by oil-resource countries, which reflects the reform of management system and the opening of oil industry, aiming at invigorating national oil companies, attracting foreign capital and technology to accelerate the development of national oil industry and making national oil companies make greater contributions to their own economic and social development. The basic content of the reform and opening-up of its petroleum industry is to separate government from enterprises, and to reform the state-owned oil company into a joint-stock system to improve its efficiency and benefit, but the government maintains control over the state-owned oil company. The upstream welcomes foreign capital to participate in exploration and development, and the national oil company represents the country to safeguard the rights and interests of oil resources; Open the downstream oil market and let foreign companies participate in the competition, but the state controls oil imports and market prices to a certain extent through the national oil company and sells some "burden" assets. There are indications that the privatization of oil industry in the world will continue, but the national oil companies will not die out, but will continue to play an important role.
Since 1990s, many important oil-producing countries in Latin America, such as Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, etc. China has gradually relaxed or lifted its monopoly control over the energy industry, introduced a series of measures for the development of the oil industry, and actively encouraged the introduction of foreign capital and foreign cooperation. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the oil industries of Russia, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries began to open to the outside world, which opened up new cooperation space for foreign oil companies, capital and technology to intervene. Even Saudi Arabia, an oil-producing country in the Middle East, has not allowed foreign oil companies to enter its own exploration and development market since the nationalization of the oil industry in the 1970s, and has begun to show signs of loosening its policies. The above-mentioned countries have relaxed their control over their own oil industries and opened up their own oil markets, providing an unprecedented broad market for the transnational operations of major international oil companies.
However, in recent years, with the rise of world oil prices, especially since 2003, the voice of oil nationalization in developing countries, especially in Latin America, is growing louder and louder. In a sense, this is undoubtedly the continuation and upgrading of the struggle of oil resource countries to safeguard their own oil rights and interests in the 20th century. The Venezuelan government under the leadership of Chavez has continuously adjusted its oil investment policy, and gradually realized the complete control of its oil property rights and the nationalization of its oil resources through the Venezuelan National Oil Company (PDVSA). Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia and other countries also responded positively and strengthened their control over their oil resources through nationalization to varying degrees.
A comprehensive analysis of the successful cases of oil companies in various countries shows that most of them have the following characteristics:
First of all, they have strong support from their own governments. The government has given great support to the development of state-owned oil companies in diplomacy, policy, taxation and finance. At the same time, national oil companies manage their own oil and gas resources on behalf of the state, safeguard national rights and interests, and pay profits and taxes to the state.
Secondly, relying on the upstream, they gradually established an integrated industrial chain, and their strength was greatly enhanced. Usually, oil storage and production are the biggest advantages of national oil companies. The top 10 oil companies with the largest oil reserves in the world are all national oil companies. When the national oil company was established, the downstream was very weak. In the past, major international oil companies exploited oil in developing countries and then transported crude oil to developed countries for refining and sales. After the mid-1970s, although major international oil companies lost most of their oil and gas fields in developing countries, they still controlled the world oil market, and national oil companies in developing countries had to sell crude oil to them. In order to change this situation, national oil companies in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, Iran, Kuwait and other countries have vigorously developed downstream business. They not only vigorously develop oil refining and sales in their own countries, but also enter developed countries in Europe and America to develop their business. Venezuela's national oil company not only has six refineries in China, but also has a 1 1 joint venture refinery abroad, and one joint venture company in California, Germany and Sweden. The downstream business capability even exceeds that of some major international oil companies. After more than 20 years of struggle, the crude oil processing capacity of the above five companies has been greatly improved. 1998 and 198 ranked eighth, third, 10, 13 and 15 among the largest oil refining enterprises in the world respectively. From 65438 to 0998, the refining capacity of national oil companies in the member countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reached 520 million tons, and the sales volume of oil products reached 600 million tons, which completely broke the situation that multinational oil companies dominated refining and sales.
Third, promote the rapid development of the company with international operation. Some oil companies in developing countries have broken the limitation of "setting up stalls" only in their own countries and have gone abroad to participate in the competition on the international stage. Participate in the redistribution of global oil and gas resources upstream, compete for, consolidate and expand market share downstream, and promote the integration of upstream and downstream through internationalization. In this respect, Kuwait National Petroleum Corporation (KPC), Venezuela National Petroleum Corporation (PDVSA), Malaysia National Petroleum Corporation (Petronas) and Brazil National Petroleum Corporation (Petrobras) are all outstanding. For example, Petronas Malaysia has made great progress in international business in just over ten years. From 1990 to 2000, the proportion of international business income in the company's total income rose from zero to 3 1.3%, which promoted the fundamental changes and promotion of the company's various businesses and overall strength, and ranked 86th among the top 500 companies in the world in 2006.
After decades of exploration and development, national oil companies of various countries have become an influential "national team" on the world oil stage by virtue of their resource endowment advantages, years of accumulation and reserve in oil technology, talents and management, and rich experience in international cooperation and transnational operation.
Facing the future, in addition to giving full play to their upstream advantages, oil companies in various countries are striving to accelerate the integration process and the pace of transnational operations, adjust and reform the oil industry structure, enhance their vitality and international competitiveness, and move towards higher goals.