Energy Logistics Development Needs Regulation Protection

Recently, at the Third China Energy Logistics Conference, the delegates focused their attention on the future development of LNG transportation logistics and transportation. The congress issued a voice that China's energy logistics and transportation system needs to be accelerated.

The discussion on LNG logistics at the meeting included two aspects. The first was how to use LNG clean energy, develop LNG vehicle industry, and form a pattern of replacing traditional diesel cargo road logistics with clean energy such as LNG and CNG; second, how to transport by rail and road To achieve a reasonable distribution of LNG market, especially from the legal and institutional level to establish and ensure the smooth flow of energy logistics.

At present, clean and sustainable development is an inevitable choice for China's economic development. However, one of the necessary conditions is that clean energy can reach the required area in a large scale. However, China’s relatively lagging railway transport regulations still prohibit LNG railway transportation. Most experts and representatives attending the meeting think that such a situation needs to change.

“The LNG rail transport to Qinghai and Tibet is currently being planned and results will soon be achieved. It will take time for LNG rail transport across the country,” said Dong Jianmin, head of the Transportation Supervision Department of the State Railway Administration. As the railway system has just completed its integration, the drafting of relevant provisions for LNG rail transport has not yet been put on the agenda.

However, relevant people believe that the reform of the energy logistics system must be realized as soon as possible to support the development of clean energy such as LNG and CNG. In the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" railway transportation capacity planning, the petroleum transportation volume in 2015 is expected to reach 200 million tons, but the actual average traffic volume since 2011 is only 138 million tons. "In the context of 'deceleration' and 'transition' of economic development, achieving this goal in 2015 is almost impossible," said Dong Jianmin. Therefore, whether or not the buffered capacity space can be adjusted for energy transportation structure has become the focus of attention of many experts.

At present, China's energy transportation accounts for 5/6 of the railway transportation volume. Therefore, many development plans have been made for railway energy transportation. However, the imperfect laws and regulations on energy transportation have made it impossible to make detailed planning, and even many development planning goals have had to be postponed. The short-term prospects for railway LNG transportation remain unknown.