On May 29th, the 16th session of The Shanghai Derivatives Market Forum Energy Sub-forum, which is co-organized by the Shanghai Futures Exchange (hereinafter referred to as the SHFE), Shanghai International Energy Exchange Center (hereinafter referred to as the INE), the International Energy Forum, the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, and the Bank of Communications. This Sub-Forum has received extensive attention from relevant domestic and overseas industries.

It is understood that this sub-forum not only has representatives from domestic energy organizations such as Sinopec, CNOOC, and China Gas, but also attracted Alejandro Barbajosa, vice president of crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific; Christopher Fix , director of CME Group and experts from the board of directors of the Dubai Commodity Exchange; Kamel Ben Naceur, who is the CEO of Nomadia Consulting, and other experts from the international energy or derivatives market participated in and delivered speeches. It can be said that this is the energy derivative conference with largest scale and largest number of participants in overseas institutions hosted by the SHFE and the INE.

Impacts of Demand Rising China's Prices Begin to Voice
As we all know, energy is an important material basis for social development and one of the main driving forces of the economy. As the largest economy in the world except the United States, in recent years, with the rapid development of China's economy, China's energy consumption is increasing day by day, and China's energy import dependence is also increasing year by year.
Relevant data show that in 2018, China has surpassed Japan to become the world's largest natural gas importer. At the same time, China's dependence on crude oil and natural gas has risen to about 71% and 43% respectively.
However, Alejandro Barbajosa said that China's direct imports of oil and gas from the United States have decreased significantly in recent years as trade frictions between China and the United States have intensified. Meanwhile, Middle Eastern oil-producing countries are turning their attention to the Chinese market in the hope of gaining higher consumption in China. "In fact, the latest data show that China's crude oil imports have shifted to the Middle East." Because China has a huge demand for crude oil and is an important potential customer that Middle-East oil-producing countries hope to win, "China has acquired the ability to influence prices in the Middle-East crude oil market to a certain extent".
In addition, in April this year, Emirates Chief Sheikh Mohammed and President Xi Jinping announced that the United Arab Emirates and China had reached an agreement worth $3.4 billion, including major infrastructure projects. To this end, Christopher Fix believes that the ties between the Middle East and China will be further deepened. He said recently that foreign media often mentioned the contents of China's "one belt and one road", almost every day, which had never happened in the past year. In his view, this represents the high attention of the market to this project and the rapid progress of the project itself. Considering the region and impact of the project, he believes that this will further promote the formation of energy prices based on regional products and trade flows.
It is understood that on March 26, 2018, Shanghai International Energy Exchange Center was listed and traded in order to objectively and comprehensively reflect the supply-demand relationship between China and the Asia-Pacific region and make up for the gap in the existing international crude oil pricing system. After more than one year's development, overall trading is smooth, settlement is smooth, delivery is smooth, supervision is strict, risk management is in place, and public opinion is positive. At the same time, its pricing ability also appears. At present, China's crude oil futures have become the third largest crude oil futures market in the world. Its price is highly related to the internationally recognized Brent and WTI prices. It has been used as a spot trade pricing benchmark by many large oil-related enterprises at home and abroad. It has been awarded the Best New Listed Derivatives Contract Award in Asia in 2018 by American Futures Options World magazine.
At present, with the increasing uncertainty of macroeconomic cycle, geopolitical risk and environmental factors for oil supply and energy demand, INE crude oil futures not only provides an important new anchor for the market, but also provides risk management tools for relevant enterprises in the rapidly changing global policy and market environment.
Compared with the international mature futures market, there is still a big gap in the coverage of the industrial chain and product supply in China, and there are still some deficiencies compared with the huge hedging demand of the oil and gas industry. But over the past year, the last period continued to promote institutional innovation. After introducing the crude oil futures market maker system, the crude oil futures price index was also issued.
It is understood that in the next step, the exchange will bid on the mature international market, continuously optimize the existing rules and regulations, including the investor appropriateness system, launch settlement price trading (TAS), issue reference prices for each closing session, study the expansion of margin categories, increase the number of deliverable oils in time, etc. And under the premise of risk control, further improve the transaction convenience, and effectively reduce the cost of investors' participation.
In addition, according to Jiang Yan, chairman of the Board of Directors of the SHFE, in the future, the exchange will accelerate the listing of crude oil options, study and promote the trading of crude oil futures warehouse receipts, and continue to refine existing varieties around the exchange's "one main two wings" development strategy.

上衍能源论坛得到境内外相关行业的广泛关注
5月29日，由上海期货交易所（下称上期所）、上海国际能源交易中心（下称能源交易中心）、国际能源论坛、中国石油和化工联合会、交通银行联合主办的第十六届上海衍生品市场论坛能源分论坛，得到了境内外相关行业的广泛关注。
据了解，本次分论坛不仅有多位来自中石化、中海油、中燃气等国内能源机构的代表参加，更吸引到了阿格斯中东及亚太原油和液化石油气副总裁Alejandro Barbajosa，芝商所集团董事总经理、迪拜商品交易所董事会成员Christopher Fix及Nomadia咨询首席执行官Kamel Ben Naceur等来自国际能源或衍生品市场的专家参与并发表了相关演讲。可以说，这是迄今为止上期所、能源交易中心主办的规模最大、境外机构参与者人数最多的能源衍生品大会。
需求提升影响力 中国价格开始“发声”
众所周知，能源是社会发展的重要物质基础，是经济的主要驱动力之一，作为全球除美国外最大的经济体，近年来随着我国经济的快速发展，我国的能源消费量日益增加，我国能源的进口依存度受此影响也在逐年提升。
相关数据显示，2018年我国已超过日本成为全球最大的天然气进口国。与此同时，我国的原油和天然气的对外依存度更是分别攀升至71%和43%左右。
不过，Alejandro Barbajosa表示，近期由于中美贸易摩擦进一步加剧，中国直接从美国进口的油气量明显减少。与此同时，中东产油国将目光投向中国市场，希望争取中国较高的消费量。“实际上，最新数据显示，中国的原油进口已出现了向中东偏移的情况。”因为中国在原油方面需求量极大，是中东等产油国希望争取的重要潜在客户，“中国在中东原油市场获得了一定影响价格的能力”。
此外，今年4月阿联酋酋长谢赫·穆罕默德与习近平主席宣布阿联酋和中国已达成了一个包含了重大基建项目、价值34亿美元的协议。为此，Christopher Fix相信，中东和中国的纽带将进一步深化。他表示，近期外媒经常提到中国“一带一路”的内容，几乎每天都有，而这是在去年从未发生过的。在他看来，这代表了市场对于这一项目的高度关注以及项目本身快速的推进速度。考虑到这一项目所涉及的地区及影响，他认为，这将进一步推进基于区域性产品和贸易流等相关能源价格的形成。
据了解，于2018年3月26日在上海国际能源交易中心挂牌交易，旨在客观全面反映我国及亚太地区供需关系，弥补现有国际原油定价体系缺口的“中国版”原油期货（INE），经过一年多的发展，总体上交易平稳、结算流畅、交割顺利、监察严格、风控到位、舆论正面，同时其定价能力也有所显现。目前，我国原油期货已跻身全球第三大原油期货市场，其价格与全球公认的Brent、WTI价格高度相关，现已被多家国内外大型涉油企业作为现货贸易定价基准，并被《美国期货期权世界》杂志授予“2018年度亚洲地区最佳新上市衍生品合约奖”。
当前，在宏观经济周期、地缘政治风险和环境因素、石油供应和能源需求等不确定性增加的情况下，INE原油期货不仅为市场提供了一个重要的新锚点，更在迅速变化的全球政策和市场环境中为相关企业提供了管理风险工具。
与国际成熟期货市场相比，我国在产业链覆盖面和产品供给上仍有较大差距，与油气产业巨大的保值需求相比也还存在一定的不足。但在这一年多的时间里，上期所持续推进制度创新，在引入了原油期货做市商制度后，还发布了原油期货价格指数。
据了解，下一步交易所将对标国际成熟市场，持续优化包括投资者适当性制度等在内的现有规则制度，推出结算价交易（TAS），发布每节收盘参考价，研究扩大保证金种类范围，适时增加可交割油种等。并在风险可控的前提下，进一步提高交易便利性，有效降低投资者参与成本。
此外，据上期所理事长姜岩介绍，未来交易所还将加快推进原油期权上市，研究推进原油期货仓单交易，围绕交易所“一主两翼”发展战略，持续做精做细现有品种。