A Study On The Market Structure And Performance Of China's Oil Industry

Chinese oil enterprises has gone through market-oriented reform and exploration for many years .However, due to inertia under the long planned economic system, the market structure of China's oil industry is still of the characteristics in the planned economy. The high market access barriers impede the market competition by limiting other actors to participate in,the market is lack of the economies of scale effect which a high concentration is formed through market competition. Faced with the demand for oil increasing dramatically which due to the economic development,and fierce international competition increasingly of the world oil market. It's a very urgent task that has been placed in front of us to enhance the competitiveness of China's oil industry in the international, to meet the needs of economic development on oil demand ,to improve oil industry's market performance.The Harvard School which is represented by Mason and Bain has being been the mainstream school of the theory of industrial organization since the 1960s. Even though the"new industrial organization theory" has a great impact on modern industrial organization whose development is on the basis of the Chicago School, and integration to each other between the Harvard School and the Chicago School, yet the structure--conduct--performance (SCP) paradigm founded by the Harvard School is a useful tool that analyse various market and enterprises in using industrial organization theory. Based on the judgment that the market structure of China's petroleum industry is formed under the leadership of the government and the market structure is exogenous, the paper is based on the SCP paradigm of the traditional theory of industrial organization as basic analytical framework, the market structure and performance of China's petroleum industry are in-depth analysised.In the first chapter, the paper explains the theoretical and practical significance of studying China's petroleum industry's market structure and performance, research methodology and analytical framework. In the second chapter , firstly, the oil industry is outlined from the oil industry characteristics, the development trend of world oil industry and the status of China's petroleum industry; following, the relevant literature is reviewed from the theoretical and empirical research which about market structure and performance in the domestic and international in field,the analysis about China's petroleum industry which using the theory of industrial organization in the domestic, and other aspects.In the third chapter, China's petroleum industry's market structure is analysised from the industrial concentration, entry and exit barriers, product differentiation, the system of management, and other aspects, the petroleum industry's market structure characteristics is summed up. In the forth chapter, China's petroleum industry operating performance was in-depth analysised from the efficiency of industrial scale structure, cost-effectiveness, productivity, scientific and technological progress and other performance indicators. In the fifth chapter, we try to discover the relationship between market structure and market performance from theoretical and practical aspects in China's petroleum industry, and sum up market structure factors which affects the operating performance of oil industry. In the sixth part of the paper, according to the conclusions in the fifth chapter, we set forth the policy recommendations to improve the performance of China's petroleum industry.