Risk assessment of transnational oil investment in Central Asia using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method

Central Asia(including five countries:Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Turkmenistan,Uzbekistan,and Tajikistan)is rich in oil reserves and has become one of the most important target regions for global oil investment.The construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt has prompted Central Asia to look outwards for more collaborations in the oil industry.China's need for oil investment in Central Asia has also increased significantly.This research established a comprehensive index system for assessing the risks of transnational oil investment in Central Asia.The system incorporated political,regulatory,economic,social,and infrastructural indices.Based on the Delphi method and fuzzy comprehension evaluation method,we qualitatively and quantitatively assessed and analyzed the risks of transnational oil investment in Central Asia.The results indicate that the risk score for regulatory risk was highest with the value of 6.1670,indicating a high risk level in transnational oil investment,followed by economic,social,political,and infrastructural risk indices.Of the 18 secondary risk indices calculated,there were seven indices with the probability of high risk occurrence exceeded 30.0%and the descending order was as follows:establishment of mining rights;host country intervention in operations;taxing system;stability of regulations;war and turmoil;labor capital;and ethnic,cultural,and religious differences.These seven critical risks should be watched closely and avoided during transnational oil investment in Central Asia.This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the potential risks of investing oil in Central Asia.The findings demonstrate the causes of these risks and provide a scientific basis for reasonably avoiding oil investment risk and improving investment benefits for both host and investing countries.

Risk assessment of oil and gas investment environment in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative

With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, China is deepening its cooperation in oil and gas resources with countries along the Initiative. In order to better mitigate risks and enhance the safety of investments, it is of significant importance to research the oil and gas investment environment in these countries for China's overseas investment macro-layout. This paper proposes an indicator system including 27 indicators from 6 dimensions. On this basis, game theory models combined with global entropy method and analytic hierarchy process are applied to determine the combined weights, and the TOPSIS-GRA model is utilized to assess the risks of oil and gas investment in 76 countries along the Initiative from 2014 to 2021. Finally, the GM(1,1) model is employed to predict risk values for 2022-2025. In conclusion, oil and gas resources and political factors have the greatest impact on investment environment risk, and 12 countries with greater investment potential are selected through cluster analysis in conjunction with the predicted results. The research findings may provide scientific decisionmaking recommendations for the Chinese government and oil enterprises to strengthen oil and gas investment cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative.

Cluster Analysis in the Target Countries of China＇s International Oil Investment

China＇s oil demand has been skyrocketed. In 2004 China became the world＇s second largest oil consumer and imported 122.7 million tons of crude oil, which accounted for 41.9% of China＇s crude oil consumption. International oil investment becomes an important channel for China to obtain oil resource. The cluster analysis in the target countries of China＇s international oil investment is studied here. An investment environment model incorporating 9 factors is established firstly, the order of these factors is ranked by their importance. Then the weight of such factors is determined by Analytic Hierarchy Process （AHP） and these countries are classified into 3 categories using cluster analysis. The results provide an important decision-making tool for China＇s international oil investment.

Study of evaluation method for the overseas oil and gas investment based on risk compensation

The overseas oil and gas investment evaluation is one of the core tasks in overseas investment of oil and gas companies,among which risk evaluation and benefit evaluation are the most important.This paper sets forth transmission paths of risk factors to the investment benefit by identifying 14 overseas oil and gas investment risks in four categories.On the basis of the concept of risk compensation,different compensation mechanisms specific to each risk are designed.The risk and benefit are integrated objectively to develop a comprehensive evaluation model by correcting the recoverable reserve,adjusting benefit evaluation parameters such as investments on exploration and development,and compensating for the changes in risk factors with time through dynamic discount rate.Moreover,two cases studies,namely the evaluations of Project A in Sudan and comparison among Blocks A–G,are used to describe usage method and applicable scope of such evaluation model,respectively.According to the results,oil price is a key influencing factor for enterprise internal risk and industrial risk.Risk compensation reduces comprehensive benefit of overseas oil and gas investment and undermines the investment feasibility and priority of blocks.The research findings of this paper are free from the effects of some subject factors and avoid multi-objective decision making,and also avoid the undesired repeated calculation of risk factors.

Analysis of the Belt and Road Initiative and Risks of Investing in Latin American Oil

The Belt and Road Initiative has brought economic development and prosperity to the countries along its route. Latin America is an important area of economic investment for China, with special focus on oil and gas,However, investment is bound to be accompanied by opportunities and risks. Before investing in oil and gas in the corresponding countries, it is necessary to analyze the risk factors from a risk management perspective so as to establish a risk identification system and early warning mechanism. In this way, enterprises can gain competitive advantages and develop in a sustainable way.