In this regard, Reuters speculated that, as we all know, China is still in the process of raising its reserves to the equivalent of 90 days of imports, coincidentally, the National Energy Board also said in September last year, China's commercial and strategic crude oil stocks are about 80 days of net imports, and at present, China has built nine national oil reserve bases, which are able to reserve about 33.25 million tons of crude oil.
In addition, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has been storing crude oil in bonded warehouses in the Asian market for months to prevent losing foreign customers due to the dollar restrictions, which includes NIOC storing more than 20 million barrels of crude oil in bonded warehouses in Dalian to decide whether to sell to Chinese customers or to other foreign customers, which has allowed Iran to continue to export oil to provide an This provides an option for Iran to continue exporting oil.
Chinese buyers purchased more than 1.03 million tons of Iranian crude in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the latest data from Customs and Reuters, and Iranian oil sellers have shipped about 18 million tons of oil to the Chinese market in the past 14 months, a record volume.
Most of the financial transactions in the ongoing shipments of Iranian oil have reportedly been conducted in yuan or euros to bypass dollar restrictions. This shows that the yuan has played the role of a trading currency in the Iranian oil trade and commerce. Obviously, Iranian oil has not stopped trading because the dollar cut off the SWIFT payment system.
The latest data show that since its listing in March 2018, the cumulative turnover of crude oil futures has been 113,196,600 lots, and the cumulative turnover amounted to 44.10 trillion yuan.2020 trading volume and positions have been significantly increased, with a cumulative total turnover of 41,585,800 lots in the year and an average daily position of 118,900 lots, an increase of 312.93% compared with 2019, with the average daily volume growth of nearly 40%.
In terms of scale, the turnover of Shanghai crude oil futures is second only to Brent Brent and U.S. WTI crude oil futures, becoming the world's third-largest crude oil futures market, which, the average daily trading volume of international investors accounted for about 16%, and in the first half of the year, the average daily position held by foreign participants increased by 6.5%.
As of March, RMB crude oil futures attracted market participants from 23 countries, including the UK, Switzerland, Singapore, the UAE, Australia, Japan, Thailand, etc., while 68 international brokers have launched RMB crude oil trading services, compared to 45 in 2019. By the end of 2020, the number of delivery depots increased to 15 from 9 at the end of 2019, and the delivery capacity expanded to 11.9 million square meters, or about 67.88 million barrels, from 3.55 million square meters at the beginning of 2020 and new progress was made.
According to RIA Novosti earlier, citing sources familiar with the matter, BP has shipped a shipment of crude oil to the delivery warehouse of the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (SIER), which is the first time since the launch of the petroleum renminbi in March 2018 that a major oil company from a developed Western country has participated in the physical delivery of renminbi crude oil futures, the BWC Chinese Finance team noted. The latest data from the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SFE) shows that in 2020, a total of 85.159 million barrels of Shanghai crude oil futures were delivered, of which, the SC2008 contract reached the largest delivery volume of 13.859 million barrels of a single-month contract since its listing.
Immediately after, Reuters further said, China may also be followed by the start of the pilot to use the yuan large-scale settlement of crude oil imports, which means that the U.S. dollar will not be able to collect tolls, and as early as a year ago, a Chinese petrochemical giant has signed a yuan crude oil futures-denominated crude oil imports agreement, and this agreement is from the Middle East, which means that the petroleum yuan has successfully entered the Middle East, which has a historic significance. historic significance.
This further means that it opens up the space for large-scale settlement of oil contracts in RMB in the future, and represents the consolidation of the internationalization of the petro RMB as a result of the consolidation of the internationalization of the petro RMB, thus providing convenience to investors who have the need to bypass the petro-dollar and hedge the risk of fluctuations in the price of USD-priced crude oil futures.
The latest news shows that both SFE and Shanghai International Energy Exchange are now included in the positive list of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which means lower compliance and operational costs for EU investors to participate in trading in China's crude oil futures market.
This is one of the key factors attracting international investors including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Mizuho Securities, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, etc. Behind this is the fact that China has maintained the high value of the RMB, and that the RMB's pricing function is already visible in the Asian market. In this regard, the Nikkei Asian Review also said a few weeks ago, Asian countries would be best to crude oil and other energy trade to the yuan and yen settlement transition.
Reuters said a few weeks ago, the rising presence of RMB crude oil in the international arena, it is likely that the first from Russia, Angola and other countries to start the implementation, to this point, means that another new star of the petroleum currency is rising, the foreign media is more outspoken, said previously, whether it is Russia or Dubai, the challenge launched on the petrodollar failed, but China managed to do so so far others The first time I've seen this, I've seen a lot of people who have tried in vain to do it.
At the same time, China is also steadily promoting the opening of a wider range of financial markets, so that the yuan to become a freely usable international currency is getting closer and closer, which also means that Chinese buyers of imports of crude oil premium situation may be improved to a certain extent, and more on behalf of the will have more investment influx of China's real economy, to enhance the ability to serve the real economy, and to help build a large domestic cycle as the main body, The new development pattern of the domestic and international double cycle is mutually reinforcing.
At the same time, China's investment in and application of new energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy, batteries, and electric vehicles are also very extensive. For example, combustible ice is regarded as a strategic alternative to oil and natural gas in the future, and it is the most promising new energy source for mankind, so whoever masters combustible ice first will get the greatest growth momentum in the future.
The new news shows that China has become the world's leading country to master the core technology of combustible ice test mining, and will formally realize large-scale commercial mining, at present, the blue whale 1 has completed the first combustible ice mining in the South China Sea in the sea area of the God Fox, and created two world records of the length of time and the total volume of the production of gas, which also means that China has occupied the highland of the energy technology in advance.
Not only that, China is also expected to build the world's first tokamak device for power generation of stable combustion of artificial sun project in a few decades, giving mankind almost unlimited clean energy, and just at this time, the media came back to the major good news.
According to the Russian satellite news agency reported three weeks ago, known as China's largest and highest parameters, with independent intellectual property rights of the artificial sun project tokamak device has been formally completed in Chengdu discharge, the plasma temperature of 150 million degrees Celsius, which marks China's formal entry into the forefront of the global research on controlled nuclear fusion, will further accelerate the pace of mankind to explore the future of energy.
According to the artificial sun project device chief engineer Song Yuntao introduction, the artificial sun does not have chain reaction or radioactive waste uncontrolled problems, and even seawater can be used as fuel, a liter of seawater extracted from the fusion fuel is equivalent to 350 liters of oil produced by the energy, so only from this point of view, the thermonuclear reactors can produce a large number of human inexhaustible energy, which is the new energy technology to attract the world's attention. This is why this new energy technology has attracted the attention of the world.
At the same time, China's nuclear energy engineering construction and installation has reached the world's advanced level, and we believe that the artificial sun will be the world's energy history, following the coal and crude oil being mined and used in another energy change. This may also be one of the major investment opportunities facing our generation, and will become the high-speed rail, big airplanes, Hualong 1, and will come out of a national economic card.
On the other hand, in the field of traditional energy, in China's oil extraction technology and crude oil needs to be improved, new oil and gas resources are also increasing, for example, with the help of new technologies, Xinjiang oilfield thick oil production also exceeded a hundred million tons, and high-quality cycloalkyl thick oil is known as the rare earth of the petroleum, is the country's economy and the construction of major projects of strategic raw materials.