Contributed by Feng Wei
Translated by Ling
Limin
With China’s oil price continuously rising, the price of gasoline and diesel peaks at 600 Yuan (84.85 dollars) per ton on June 30th, 2009. It is also the second time that the government adjusts the gasoline prices. The sharp amount of increase in petrol’s price is far beyond driver’s expectations.
Is it because the surging of global oil prices impacts our domestic oil price rising? Definitely not. According to Xinhua News Agency, China’s oil price is 1.8 Yuan (0.26 dollars) higher than American’s. Each liter of oil in China is 6.37 Yuan (0.93 dollars), and then petroleum companies get 4.08 Yuan (0.6 dollars) in the end excluding the government taxations. But in New Jersey, current 4.56 Yuan (0.54 dollars) per liter oil price, besides government oil taxations, BP get 3.294 Yuan (0.48 dollars). Also in Japan, the domestic oil price at 7.5 Yuan (1.098 dollars), that the actual after- tax oil the Petroleum Corporation get is 3.4 Yuan (0.498 dollars). From“naked price”—excluding oil taxations and fees from oil products, we can easily see that China’s refined oil price is indeed higher than the U.S. In addition, Chinese oil companies get the most money from sales revenue or even larger than the average level of developed countries.
Some consumers confuse whether it is reasonable for China’s refined oil prices higher than those in the United States. When international oil prices slide, ours drop little; when international prices climb, ours skyrocket. Does our government truly play an important role to manipulate its“invisible hand”to control domestic oil price?
Consumers have their rights to know the structures of the oil prices, which consist of crude oil costs, refinery costs, transportation costs and state taxes and fees. An open, transparent pricing mechanism can make consumers and public convince that high price. These oil companies are questioned by the whole society for their monopolized way to raise domestic oil price so as to gain more profit.
The price bumped up immediately followed by global trends. However, in the name of national conditions, we never lower our price when the international price slides. It is said that shrewd men always achieve profits to the most extent, but never loss a penny. That’s the way of our oil companies who control the track of our oil price.