The Potential Impact and Path of Natural Gas Upstream Marketization Reform in China
Gong Chengzhu, Wu Desheng and Gong Nianjiao
摘要：中国政府在促进天然气市场化方面虽取得了重大进展，但上游市场的市场准入和不同来源的天然气定价方面仍受监管和规制。为探索天然气产业上游市场多源互补、进口价格放松管制等深化改革政策对天然气市场均衡和社会福利的潜在影响，本文采用自底而上的多主体建模方法，建立了包括天然气供应商、管输商、储气商和消费者在内的中国天然气市场多主体混合互补模型，并通过反事实情景设计，模拟分析了天然气上游市场化改革的潜在影响。研究结果表明：天然气上游市场在现有的古诺竞争格局下，供应商可以发挥其市场力,减少天然气供应总量，提升平均零售价格，但随着新的供应主体加入和管网储气等基础设施的改善，现有供应商的市场力将被削弱，具体弱化程度主要取决于新增供应主体的供应成本。此外，本研究还探讨了现阶段最合适的进口补贴比例。基于这些结论，本文为中国的天然气上游市场提供了一条渐进性改革路径，即优先保障供应市场的多主体、多渠道供应，逐步完善管道、储气等基础设施，适当降低进口补贴水平。
关键词：天然气产业；市场化改革；多主体系统；混合互补问题
Abstract：Although the Chinese government has made significant progress in promoting the marketization of natural gas, market access in the upstream market and pricing between different sources of natural gas are still regulated by the government. Thispaperexploresthe potential impact of deepening reform policies on the natural gas market equilibrium and social welfare, which include upstream market multi-source complementarity, imported gas price deregulation. This paper adopts the bottom-up approach to develop a multi-agent mixed complementary model of China's natural gas market, which includes gas suppliers, pipeline operators, storage operators and consumers. Moreover, we designed different degree of liberalization scenarios to simulate the performance of the regional natural gas market. The results show that the Cournot competitive perspective of the supply market will lead suppliers to exert market power, thereby reducing the total supply of natural gas and raising the average retail price, but the market power of existing suppliers will be weakened as infrastructure improves and suppliers with cost advantages enter. In addition, the study also explores the most suitable import subsidy ratio at this stage. Based on these conclusions, this paper provides a progressive reform path for China's upstream natural gas market, that is, giving priority to ensuring the supply market's multi-subject, multi-channel supply, gradually improving the pipeline, gas storage and other infrastructure, appropriately reduce the level of import subsidies.
Keywords: Natural Gas Industry; Market-oriented Reform; Multi-agent System; Mixed Complementarity Problem
基金资助：国家自然科学基金青年项目“天然气产业价格扭曲测度与市场均衡仿真研究”（71804167）和教育部人文社科基金青年项目“基于需求分析的天然气阶梯定价影响机制与效果评价”（17YJC630028）
DOI:10.19511/j.cnki.jee.2019.04.002