China creating office to safeguard `energy security'? (updated PM 02:00)
2005/4/28
SHANGHAI, China (AP)
China has created a powerful new agency to oversee the country's energy security amid booming demand for power and surging oil imports, an official at the country's main planning agency said Thursday.
The National Development and Reform Commission is in the midst of preparations for a State Energy Office, a commission official in Beijing said, confirming a report by The Asian Wall Street Journal.
The official refused to give his name or provide other details.
The State Energy Office will supervise China's state-owned oil companies and a newly created strategic petroleum reserve, the Journal said, citing an unnamed commission official. It will report directly to the Cabinet, giving it greater influence than other regulatory agencies, the newspaper said.
China's communist government is alarmed at the country's growing dependence on imported oil and gas to fuel its surging economy, whose annual growth has topped 8 percent in recent years. By 2020, the country will depend on imports for 60 percent of its oil supply and 30 percent of its natural gas, according to a recent report by the U.S.-based Rand Corp.
China has aggressively sought oil and gas supplies abroad, signing multibillion-dollar supply contracts and pursuing closer relations with Russia, Iran, Sudan and other countries. Widespread power shortages have prompted criticism of the State Energy Bureau, a tiny department with about 20 people, that's responsible for overseeing an energy industry with assets of more than 10 trillion yuan (US$1.2 trillion; ?934 billion).
China created an Energy Ministry in 1988, but abolished it in 1993 amid a bureaucratic overhaul. The Energy Bureau was set up in 2003 to oversee oil and gas, coal, electricity and alternative energy sources, but power over those sectors is divided between various ministries and state-run corporations.
State media reported in December that the government was considering setting up the Energy Office to handle strategic planning and oversight of the energy sector.
The Journal said the office would be led by Ma Kai, who also heads the NDRC. Ma's deputies at the new agency will include Ma Fucai, who resigned as general manager of China's biggest oil company, China National Petroleum Corp., after a gas field accident in 2003 killed 243 people, it said.
The office's mandate could extend to securing foreign gas and oil, managing domestic coal supplies, resolving chronic electricity shortages and forcing factories to raise efficiency and cut pollution, the report said.
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