The oil war is a huge gain for China in the global energy market
Is the world's largest oil producer Saudi Arabia or Russia in 2023?
The answer must have surprised many people.
Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the Middle East and the largest within OPEC, although Russia does not belong to OPEC and does not belong to the Middle East.
Of course, given that Russia is suffering from Western sanctions and voluntarily cutting production, many people are not sure what Russia's production will be. But on the other hand, since Russia entered the Asian market, China and India have been in a steady stream***
Is the unexpected answer that Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer?
The final answer is neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia, but the United States.
According to the 2023 production statistics report, the United States ranks first among all oil producing countries, with an average production of 12.93 million barrels per day, which is a well-deserved champion.
In fact, in 2018, the United States surpassed other countries in oil production to become the largest oil producer.
This may be quite different from the conventional wisdom, because in the past, the continuous development of American industry led to a very high demand for oil, and therefore a very high degree of dependence on Middle Eastern oil-producing countries.
It is also for this reason that the United States has reached an agreement with the countries of the Middle East on the use of a meta-settlement system.
In recent decades, there have been many crises in the Middle East, and these crises are actually related to the United States, and the reason for this is that the United States, by controlling the Middle East region, can control and ensure its own strategic needs.
However, in recent years, due to the continuous improvement of shale oil production technology in the United States, the production of oil in the United States has also increased, and the import demand in the past has gradually evolved into the export demand now.
The most fundamental reason why the honeymoon partnership between the United States and the countries of the Middle East has become so contradictory is that the United States has turned from a partner to a competitor.
Over the past two years, OPEC has continued to cut production in hopes of supporting *** in addition to additional voluntary cuts in a number of countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two largest oil producers.
Why doesn't the U.S. follow OPEC's lead, reduce production, and push up oil prices?
The United States has become the number one oil producer, and if the price of oil is **, the situation should be more favorable for American oil companies.
But in fact, from the strategic point of view of the United States, it makes more sense to increase production.
The United States took advantage of OPEC's production cut to steadily increase production and make up for the global gap. For the United States, this is not only because of the need to lower oil prices to control inflation, but more importantly, the desire to take the opportunity to gain a larger share of the global ** market.
Therefore, we have to admire the United States, which in this oil war it has excluded OPEC and secretly gained more and more global market share.
But this is not the end of the Middle East countries, and OPEC may be just as mysterious, ostensibly arguing with the United States about oil and production, but in reality OPEC members are constantly trying to reduce dollar payments in oil.
Perhaps the outcome of the oil season will eventually be reflected in the currency war.
Is it important for us to make sure we have what we need to thrive in this war, and Russia is the most important part of that?
In 2023, Russia's ** and derivatives production totaled 13.65 million barrels per day, but this figure includes derivatives such as natural gas, which are actually around 10 million barrels per day if only counted**. With this figure, Russia overtook Saudi Arabia in second place.
At the same time, Russia exported more than 100 million tons of oil to China, once again surpassing Saudi Arabia as the main importer of our country.
For us, importing ** from Russia is also worth the money, because the average of our imports ** is 82 yuan per barrel, but if we only calculate the average oil price in Russia, it is 78 yuan. We can see that the import of oil from Russia is lower than the global average.
This should be our gain in this oil war.
However, for us, obtaining favorable imports** is not the ultimate solution, and if we can find more oil reserves like the United States, improve our extraction technology, including shale oil, and enable China to continue to reduce its dependence on oil imports, it will be the long-term solution.