Downstream oil supply security in China: Policy implications from quantifying the impact of oil import disruption

Unavoidable disruptions in the international oil supply create heavy pressures on the downstream oil market for oil-importing countries, especially China, whose high dependency on imported oil makes its downstream oil supply security an urgent issue. However, little attention has been paid to the supply security of the downstream oil industry with respect to dealing with import disruptions. Here, an integrated quantitative assessment framework is established to identify the impact of crude oil import disruptions on downstream oil supply security from the supply chain perspective. The dynamic scheduling process of the downstream oil supply chain under 72 import disruption scenarios is simulated by coupling a mathematical programming model with Latin hypercube sampling. The improved grey incidence evaluation method is applied for the comprehensive assessment of province-level and region-level oil product supply security based on the simulation results. The case of 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China in 2017 and 2020 is analysed as an example to demonstrate the framework. We find significant differences among provinces. The southwest and eastern coastal areas of China are vulnerable to potential oil supply disruptions, while the northwest China enjoys high supply security. Based on the results of this paper, policy implications are provided for the Chinese government. The design framework is not case-specific and can be applied for the quantitative assessment of other countries or regions.