Market-oriented reform of energy prices: natural gas and electricity prices may accelerate marketization

Experts say that the fundamental of energy price reform is the transparency of market pricing and price mechanisms, and the clearance of surcharges is actually one aspect of transparency

A few days ago, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Energy Development Strategy Action Plan (2014-2020)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan"), which clarified the overall goals, strategic guidelines and key tasks of China's energy development in 2020, and deployed to promote energy innovation Development, safe development and scientific development. The Action Plan has become the overall action program for my country's energy development in the future.

"Action Plan" emphasizes that energy price reform will be promoted. Promote price reforms in the fields of oil, natural gas, electricity, etc., and orderly liberalize competitive link prices. Natural gas wellhead prices and sales prices, on-grid electricity prices and sales electricity prices are formed by the market, and transmission and distribution prices and oil and gas pipeline transmission prices are set by the government.

Industry experts said that in order to leverage the price and further release the reform dividend, the energy price mechanism will be formed as soon as possible, and improving the energy price mechanism will not only be good news for related industries and enterprises, but also release its economic benefits.

Lin Boqiang, director of the China Energy Economic Research Center of Xiamen University, said in an interview with the "Securities Daily" that the main trend of China's energy price reform is market-oriented price reform. For example, the recently proposed clean-up surcharge is a very important aspect of energy prices. . The fundamental of energy price reform is the transparency of market pricing and price mechanisms. Clearing surcharges is actually one aspect of transparency.

Lin Boqiang said that from the current progress of my country's energy price reform, coal prices have been relatively market-oriented, and natural gas prices will be relatively market-oriented after further adjustment next year.

"Energy price reform can prompt enterprises to pay more attention to efficiency, improve the current situation of waste of resources, and give full play to price information release and leverage." Liu Jianxiu, senior consultant of China Investment Consulting, said in an interview with a "Securities Daily" reporter to promote energy prices The reform needs to increase the efforts of clearing fees and eliminating chaos, and improve the price formation mechanism and regulation system. At the same time, it is also necessary to strengthen and improve the price regulation of the energy industry, and strengthen the construction of market mechanisms so that the market can play a major role in the price itinerary.

"If energy price reform can truly achieve marketization, it will have a profound impact on the development of the entire energy industry." Lin Boqiang emphasized. He believes that, first of all, a very important issue in the energy industry is competition, such as the competitive electricity market, etc. These will involve whether the price is determined by the market, and the price will also become a signal, through competition to generate prices, and then guided by prices Investment, these are necessary prerequisites. If there is no market-determined price, then competition will be very difficult.

Lin Boqiang further analyzed that the advantage of market-oriented pricing is to be able to guide the allocation of resources. In the future, with the pressure from energy conservation, emission reduction and resources, how to do market-oriented pricing will be a very important and complex issue.