The last round of refined oil price adjustment ran aground. At 24:00 on July 21, the time window for refined oil price adjustment in China will open again. Recently, the international oil price has shown a slight warming trend. Industry institutions believe that, if there is no accident, the price of refined oil in this round may rise slightly, becoming the fifth increase in the year.

In the opinion of experts, the pace of OPEC production reduction and the recovery process of shale oil in the United States are two key factors affecting the current trend of international oil prices.

"Today's shale oil is like a tumbler, which is unlikely to be overthrown." Dai Sipan, chief economist of BP Group, believes that the flexible shale oil has become the regulator of current international oil price fluctuations, making the international oil price run more smoothly.

Dai Sipan said that the price range of $45-50 per barrel is a crucial price point for the US shale oil industry. Observation shows that once the international oil price approaches 50 dollars per barrel or above, the number of shale oil starts in the United States will increase significantly. When the international oil price drops to around $45 per barrel, the number of shale oil wells drilled in the United States will decline.

In late June this year, the international oil price fell to around 42 dollars per barrel. According to Baker Hughes, an international oil service company, as of the week of June 30, the 23 week continuous increase in the number of wells drilled in American oilfields ended. After entering July, the international oil price rebounded to around 47 dollars per barrel, and the number of oil field wells resumed growth.

Now, OPEC has also deeply realized that shale oil has become an opponent they have to face. Even so, the pace of OPEC production reduction is still being steadily implemented, and even the deadline for production reduction was further extended at the end of May this year, in order to reduce the global oil inventory and enable the oil inventory to fall back to the normal level.

The trend of international crude oil price is the vane of China's refined oil price adjustment. According to China's Petroleum Price Management Measures, the domestic gasoline and diesel prices are adjusted every 10 working days according to the changes in crude oil prices in the international market, and the effective time of price adjustment is 24:00 on the release date of price adjustment. When the price adjustment range is less than 50 yuan per ton, no adjustment will be made, which will be accumulated or offset in the next price adjustment.

The time window for the last round of domestic refined oil price adjustment was opened on July 7. Because the amplitude adjustment did not meet the price adjustment threshold, the price adjustment was stranded for the third time in the year.

Under the competition between OPEC and shale oil, the international oil price showed a trend of low before and high after this round of product oil price adjustment cycle. On the first trading day, the international oil price fell by nearly 3%, affected by the resumption of the increase in the number of wells drilled in American oil fields. A series of later data shows that the peak summer oil consumption season has driven the demand for crude oil to be better and the inventory to be lower. The US Energy Information Administration has also lowered the crude oil production forecast for 2018, and the international oil price has shown a slight recovery momentum.

On the 19th, according to the data released by the US Energy Information Administration, the US commercial crude oil inventory fell by 4.7 million barrels to 490.6 million barrels last week, which exceeded market expectations and supported the rise of international oil prices. So far, since July 7, the price of crude oil futures in New York has risen by 6.5%, and the price of Brent crude oil futures has risen by 6.4%.

The international oil price first fell and then rose. The change rate of the package of crude oil corresponding to the price adjustment of China's refined oil has also changed from the initial negative operation to the positive operation, and the increase has been widening.

The data released by Xinhua News Agency's oil price system on July 20 showed that the average price change rate of a package of crude oil on July 19 was 2.45%. It is expected that at 24:00 on July 21, the retail prices of domestic gasoline and diesel may rise slightly by 70 yuan per ton.

This round of refined oil price adjustment cycle is the 14th round of refined oil price adjustment cycle in China this year. Since this year, China's refined oil prices have experienced four increases, six decreases and three runs aground. In general, the price of refined oil fell more than rose, and the prices of gasoline and diesel dropped by 605 yuan and 580 yuan per ton respectively.