China's first energy law is coming! On the morning of the 10th, the official website of the National Energy Administration publicly solicited opinions on the "Energy Law of the People's Republic of China (Consultation Draft)."
The drafting of China's "Energy Law" can be traced back to 2005. At present, there are four separate laws in the energy field: the Electricity Law, the Coal Law, the Energy Conservation Law, and the Renewable Energy Law. The Energy Law solicited comments to take the legislative process one step further.
Important signal released
The state clearly encourages the efficient and clean development and utilization of energy resources, supports the priority development of renewable energy, rationally develops fossil energy resources, develops distributed energy according to local conditions, promotes the replacement of fossil energy with non-fossil energy, and replaces high-carbon energy with low-carbon energy, and supports the development and application of alternative oil , New fuels for natural gas and industrial raw materials.
First, it will gradually reduce the proportion of fossil energy in China's energy structure. At present, China's oil and natural gas reserves and mining capacity are not enough to support domestic demand. In addition, fossil energy has long been the focus of international competition. Therefore, the energy law should be used to reduce the proportion of fossil energy in China and ensure national energy strategic security.
The second is to form a good market competition environment in the oil and gas field. In China, petroleum and other fossil fuels are national strategic materials, operated exclusively by the country, and are not completely market-based competitions. The Energy Law proposes that “under the premise of protective development, allow market entities that meet the access requirements to participate in oil and gas exploration and exploitation”, which is a great benefit for forming a market competition environment in the oil and gas field.
The third is to promote the development of new energy and clean energy. China has a rich coal resource endowment, and the accompanying reserves of coalbed methane, shale gas, shale oil and tight gas are also very rich, but these energy sources have not been well developed and utilized in the past. After accelerating the development of non-fossil energy in legal form, it is believed that new energy and clean energy will receive certain preferential policies and development channels.
In addition, the consultation draft also proposed that the development, processing and conversion of coal, oil and natural gas should follow the principles of safety, green, intensive and efficient, and increase the resource recovery rate and the level of clean and efficient development and utilization; Development of coal-based fuel and chemical raw materials.
Some provisions of the fossil energy related draft
Article 40 [Oil and Gas Development]
The state encourages large-scale, advanced and intensive petroleum processing conversion methods to optimize the industrial layout and structure of petroleum processing conversion.
Article 48 [Enterprise Security Obligations]
Petroleum sales enterprises should incorporate bio-liquid fuels that meet national standards into their fuel sales systems.
Article 53 [Pipe Network Management]
Energy transmission pipeline network facilities such as power grids and oil and gas pipeline networks should improve the fair access mechanism and open to fair and non-discriminatory market entities such as qualified energy production and sales enterprises.
No unit or individual may restrict market subjects from applying for access to the energy transmission pipeline network in accordance with relevant state regulations.
Article 64 [Market Subject]
Natural monopoly businesses and competitive businesses in the energy sector should be operated separately, and various investment entities should be encouraged to participate equally in energy development and utilization activities and infrastructure construction in accordance with the law.
Article 65 [Market Construction Objectives]
The state distinguishes the characteristics of different energy varieties, promotes the construction of energy markets such as coal, electricity, oil, and natural gas, establishes an energy market system with diverse subjects, unified and open, orderly competition, and effective supervision to achieve the optimal allocation of energy resources in a larger range.
Article 66 [Price mechanism]
Competitive links in the energy sector are mainly formed by the market, and the state promotes the formation of a mechanism that determines energy prices mainly by factors such as the status of energy resources, market supply and demand, environmental costs, and inter-generational fairness and sustainability.
The price of the natural monopoly link is managed by the competent price department. The authority and scope of the government to set energy prices are based on central and local pricing catalogs.
Article 74 [Safety Reserve]
In accordance with the principles of combining government reserves with enterprise reserves and linking reserves with production, supply, storage, and sales systems, the state has established energy, oil, natural gas, and coal energy safety reserve systems, scientifically set reserves, continuously optimized category structures, and continuously improved reserve efficiency.
Government reserves include national direct investment operations and strategic reserves undertaken by state-funded companies. Corporate reserves include corporate social responsibility reserves and other reserves formed in the form of production and operation inventories and production capacity reserves.
The people's government at or above the county level and its relevant departments are responsible for the energy security reserve capacity building and the management of purchase, storage, rotation, and utilization.
Article 75 [Reserve Utilization]
If one of the following occurs, the department designated by the State Council shall, together with the financial department of the State Council, propose a plan to use energy reserves, which shall be submitted to the State Council for approval and implementation:
(1) The energy supply is interrupted or greatly reduced in the whole country or in some areas due to emergencies, which has or may cause a serious imbalance in the supply and demand of the domestic market, and the national economy is significantly affected or damaged;
(2) The need of the state to regulate and control the total national economy;
(3) Other circumstances stipulated by laws, administrative regulations or the decision of the State Council.
Article 86 [Investment and Trade Cooperation]
The state strengthens bilateral and multilateral investment and trade cooperation in the energy field, prevents and responds to risks in the international energy market, promotes two-way energy investment and trade in products, technologies and services, mobilizes various market players to build a diversified supply system.
The state encourages the import of clean, high-quality energy, the introduction of advanced energy technologies, and the strengthening of the import and export supervision and management of fossil energy and high-energy-consuming products.
Article 108 [Responsibility for opening the pipe network]
If an enterprise operating an energy transmission pipeline network facility violates the provisions of this Law and has one of the following circumstances, the energy competent department shall order it to correct it; if it causes economic loss to one party, it shall impose a fine of two times or more and five times or less the amount of economic loss on a daily basis. ;Constitute a crime, be held criminally responsible:
(1) Violating the provisions of the law and failing to fulfill the obligation to open the pipe network fairly and without discrimination;
(2) The facilities, equipment and products of the energy transmission pipeline network do not meet the national standards.
