Oil is one of the most important resources in the world today, and it plays a vital role in the economic development of a country or a region.
Countries around the world are highly dependent on oil resources. Although China began the construction and development of oil fields in the last century, and has a lot of oil fields, at present, China still needs to import a large amount of oil.
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, China was considered to be an oil-poor country with backward infrastructure. The diesel, gasoline and kerosene used in China are mainly imported from foreign countries, rather than produced domestically. Several well-known oil fields in China, such as the Daqing Oilfield, also began to be developed in the fifties and sixties of the last century.
In 1959, China's oil industry developed vigorously and its output gradually increased. In this year, China's famous Daqing oil field was discovered, which made China's oil production increase significantly, and also changed the situation that China has always relied on oil imports, and realized domestic oil self-sufficiency.
In the sixties and seventies of the last century, China encountered new opportunities in oil exploitation, and successively discovered such well-known oil fields as Shengli, Changqing, and North China.
This makes China's oil production maintain a rapid growth trend, and even reached an annual output of 100 million tons of oil at the end of the seventies.
However, China's oil production is not large, as of 2013, China ranks fifth among the world's oil producers, and China's annual oil consumption is very huge.
This has led to the fact that although China has a certain amount of oil production, it is still one of the world's largest oil consumers, and so far, China still needs to import a large amount of oil resources every year.
After the reform and opening up, China's economy has developed rapidly, the people's living standards have gradually improved, the people's demand has become more and more vigorous, and the demand for natural resources such as oil has also appeared a new peak.
Although the development of Daqing Oilfield has enabled China to achieve self-sufficiency in oil, with the increase in demand, the import of foreign oil resources has become an urgent problem.
In 1993, China's annual import of oil reached 10 million tons, most of which came from the Middle East, which is very rich in oil production, and it provides oil for many countries in the world.
However, there is a very big hidden danger in China's oil imports from the Middle East, that is, our oil transportation inevitably has to pass through the Strait of Malacca, which may face very big security risks in the process of transporting our oil.
The Strait of Malacca is an important sea lane connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and it is one of the busiest sea lanes in the world, with more than 60,000 ships passing through it every year.
The Strait of Malacca is only a few dozen kilometers wide and has a lot of islands, reefs and pirates, which makes navigation here very difficult and dangerous.
In the event of a war or terrorist attack, ships here could be attacked or blocked, which would be a fatal blow to countries that rely on this route.
In addition, relying only on a single oil merchant in the Middle East will also bring instability to China's oil resources.
The Middle East is a politically volatile and conflict-prone region where the situation can change at any time, affecting oil production and exports.
If there is a war or crisis in the Middle East, the amount of oil may be interrupted or reduced, which is a serious threat to countries that need to import large quantities of oil.
Therefore, at the same time, our country began to look for new oil partners, and Russia, which is rich in oil resources and closer to our national line, became another option for China.
Since the 90s of the last century, our country has been engaged in oil cooperation contacts with the Russian side.
On the one hand, it is because Russia has abundant domestic oil fields, which produce a large amount of oil and have a stable production. On the other hand, because Russia is closer to China than other oil regions, there are some cost savings in terms of oil transportation.
Before cooperating with Russia, China initially considered laying pipelines from several of Russia's most productive oil fields to China's Daqing region.
First of all, the Daqing oilfield is located in the northeast of China, closer to the location of several oil fields in Russia, and the cost of laying pipelines will be lower than in other regions. Secondly, as one of the earliest oilfields in China, Daqing Oilfield has a relatively complete pipeline infrastructure around it.
However, the Russian side did not give a clear answer until 1994, when our country began to make contacts with Russian private enterprises, which were more active than Russian state-level oil companies.
Among them, Yukos Petroleum Company proposed a plan for an oil pipeline to China, which has been valued by relevant departments in China.