Journal de la biodiversité et des espèces menacées

Relations of Future Crude Oil Imports between China and India: Competition or Cooperation? –From Perspectives of Crude Oil Import Sources

Abstract

Jun Lan, Wanli Xing and Bing CUI

This paper first analyzed the current situations of, and then discussed the relationship between China’s and India’s oil imports. The diversification levels of the two countries’ oil imports are both changing in order to secure their own overseas oil supply, resulting in expanding overlap between their oil import sources. The regions that make major contributions to oil imports of both China and India are the Middle East, South, and Central America and West Africa. As the similarities of the oil import source distributions of the two countries rise gradually, the Sino-India Competition Index (CI) in the oil market presents a fast growth, from 8.61 in 2006 to 22.49 in 2016. Since further growth of China’s and India’s oil imports are highly expected, stable oil supply serves the interests of both the countries. China and India mostly import crude oil from regions in complicated geopolitical environments, thus they can work collaboratively to help maintain the political stability of such oil-exporting countries, for the sake of their own oil security. Cooperation can not only avoid the “resource premium” derived from buyers’ competition but also strengthen the two countries’ friendship and create a win-win situation.