market is basically balanced by price signals from the main energy-consuming
countries and energy-producing countries and is a fully open and freely competitive
market, but such balance features obvious antagonism. For example, OPEC fre-
quently uses production limitation measures to affect global energy supply and
often links the energy supply to international political relations, which worries the
main oil-consuming countries. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia
rapidly rose as a large energy producer, while the rapid economic development of
China and India, etc. resulted in greatly increasing the energy demand, putting huge
reform pressure on the old global energy governance system. Specifically, this
reform pressure mainly comes from the following aspects.
1.The rise of new important energy-producing countries and energy-
consuming countries has changed the balance of supply and demand on
the world energy marketThe rise of Russia and the Central Asian countries as the main energy-producing
countries and China, India and Brazil as the main energy-consuming countries is the
most representative. In 2010, China replaced the USA as the largest oil exporting
destination for Saudi Arabia; in 2011, combined daily oil consumption in three
“BRICs”—China, India and Brazil—exceeded that of all of Western Europe (in-
cluding Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, etc.), while Russia surpassed Saudi
Arabia as the largest oil producer in the world (Saudi Arabia still kept the position of
the largest oil exporting country); and 34 % of the natural gas for the EU was
imported from Russia. The IEA has been aware that the fastest growth of demand for
energy (especially oil and natural gas) in the future will occur in countries outside the
OECD rather than OECD member countries; if the IEA refuses to expand and admit
new members, it will lose legitimacy since it will no longer be the only element for
affecting the global energy supply and demand balance.
2.Skyrocketing Natural Gas Demand Has Changed the Pattern in Which
“The Whole World Is Dominated by Oil”Natural gas is the kind of clean energy which has become popular among con-
sumers in the last 20 years and might replace oil in many aspects; furthermore,
natural gas is characterized by a low price, high thermal efficiency and low pol-
lution—in this sense, natural gas is an energy capable of realizing the dual goals of
economic growth and greenhouse gas reduction. Currently, 80 % of the natural gas
output in the world comes from non-OPEC member countries; natural gas not only
changes the supply and demand structure on the world energy market, but it also
presents new requirements for the reform of the global energy governance system.
Given substitution relations between natural gas and oil, if large gas-producing
countries are not absorbed, the global energy governance system cannot succeed.
3.Emergence of Energy Transit CountriesTraditionally, oil is delivered mainly via sea transport; however, natural gas,
especially that in inland areas, is often exported by means of pipelines, which
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