Accepted Manuscript

The stability of the international oil trade network from short-term and
long-term perspectives

Qingru Sun, Xiangyun Gao, Weiqiong Zhong, Nairong Liu

PII: S0378-4371(17)30348-5
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2017.04.047
Reference: PHYSA 18149

To appear in: Physica A

Received date: 23 November 2016

Revised date: 6 March 2017

Please cite this article as: Q. Sun, X. Gao, W. Zhong, N. Liu, The stability of the international
oil trade network from short-term and long-term perspectives, Physica A (2017),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2017.04.047

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*Highlights (for review)

Highlights:
1. We provide a method to measure the stability of complex networks.
2. We analyze the stability of networks from short-term and long-term aspects.
3. The stability is different between weighted and unweighted networks.
*Manuscript
Click here to view linked References

The stability of the international oil trade network from

short-term and long-term perspectives
a,b,c
Qingru Sun , Xiangyun Gaoa,b,c*, Weiqiong Zhonga,b,c, Nairong Liua,b,c
a School of Humanities and Economic Management, China University of Geosciences,

Beijing 100083, China

b Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, Ministry

of Land and Resources, Beijing 100083, China

c Open Lab of Talents Evaluation, Ministry of Land and Resources, Beijing 100083, China

Abstract
To examine the stability of the international oil trade network and explore the
influence of countries and trade relationships on the trade stability, we construct
weighted and unweighted international oil trade networks based on complex network
theory using oil trading data between countries from 1996 to 2014. We analyze the
stability of international oil trade network (IOTN) from short-term and long-term
aspects. From the short-term perspective, we find that the trade volumes play an
important role on the stability. Moreover, the weighted IOTN is stable; however, the
unweighted networks can better reflect the actual evolution of IOTN. From the
long-term perspective, we identify trade relationships that are maintained during the
whole sample period to reveal the situation of the whole international oil trade. We
provide a way to quantitatively measure the stability of complex network from
short-term and long-term perspectives, which can be applied to measure and analyze
trade stability of other goods or services.

Keywords: Complex network; Stability; Evolution; International trade.

1. Introduction
Networks are evolving over time, which may cause the networks unstable. The
measurement of stability of networks is a fundamental issue in complex network field.

* Corresponding author at: School of Humanities and Economic Management, China University of Geosciences,
Beijing 100083, China. E-mail address: gxy5669777@126.com.
1
Complex network theory is an effective tool to analyze the structure of a system and
relationships between numerous nodes, as well as the evolution of networks [1-3].
The structure of a network determines the function of the system [3, 4]. Many
researches focus on the structure and evolution of networks to understand the
operation of systems, such as economic field [5-8], financial field [9-15], engineering
field [16-18], medical field [19] and so on. In recent studies, complex network theory
has been applied to the aspects of energy [16, 20-26] and international trade [27-30],
finding that these two types of networks are unstable. Previous researches have
proved that networks have an unstable characteristic and focus on the dynamic
evolution of networks, but pay little attention to the measurement of stability of
networks.
It is generally known that the pattern of international oil trade network (IOTN) is
changing over time. Oil, the most widely traded commodity over the world, acts as a
driving factor of the development of the modern industrial economy. Importing
countries depend on foreign oil to support their domestic economy, and exporting
countries sell oil to collect wealth for improving the wellbeing of their citizens.
Recently, the USA competes for the share of international oil market with OPEC
countries after its success of shale oil revolution. Notably, international oil trade (IOT)
center has been transferred to the Asian-Pacific region. The Europe countries want to
decline the oil dependence on Russia. The result of Britain exiting from the EU may
have a high influence on IOT market and change the pattern of IOT. These changes of
pattern lead to the instability of IOT. Stable IOT plays an important role in economic
development and energy security [31]. But oil policy changes in any country will lead
to the instability of trade. For instance, in 1973 Arab countries uses oil as a “weapon”
to decline the production of oil and caused one of the biggest economic crises after
the Second World War, leading to a dramatic recession in western developed countries.
Thus, it is important to identify and examine the stability of IOTN and its evolution. It
can help policymakers and investors understand the trade position of countries,
choose oil trade partners, obtain the discourse power of oil trade and make trade
strategies to increase energy security.
2
 Recently, researchers have focused on the stability of IOTN. The IOT is a
complex system with numerous countries and complicated trading relationships
among them. IOTN not only reflects trade positions of the countries, but also reflects
dynamical processes, including that countries participate in or exit oil trade market,
trade relationships are built or broken, and trade volumes are changed. Several
researchers analyzed the evolution of IOT structure by examining the topological
properties of networks. Some researchers built IOTNs, examining the properties of
networks in terms of the distribution of countries [32], the overall features [33] and
the spatial structure of crude oil trade[34], they found these properties were changing
over time. Some researchers[33] studied the community structure of IOT based on
complex network theory, and analyzed the evolution of communities [35], they found
the communities are unstable over time and unweighted and weighted IOTNs were
different with respect to the number of communities and scale. An[36] proposed a
trading-based network model of international crude oil, analyzed the relationship
between countries with common trade partners based on importing-based network and
exporting-based network respectively, and found the scales, stability, hierarchy
structure and partition of the networks were changing over time. Zhang [37]
constructed IOTN based on the competition among oil importers and analyzed the
evolution of the pattern and transmission of oil-trading competition. Core trading
countries have been identified [32, 38], and the ranking of countries’ importance were
changing every year. The existing literatures are good references to help us understand
the evolution of IOTN, and they are the evidences that the IOT is unstable. Most of
these previous studies showed the instability of IOT based on complex network theory.
For example, Zhong [32] quantitatively analyzed the evolution of communities to
measure the stability of communities in IONT from a regional perspective. However,
they didn’t quantitatively assess the stability of IOTN in terms of the number of
countries, trade relationships and trade volumes from a global perspective, which
could be helpful to identify the most influential countries and trade relationships for
the trade stability. The structure composed by the most important countries and trade
relationships among them will favor a better understanding of the evolution of the
3
international oil trade.
In this paper, the stability of IOTN is defined as the change in the number of
trade countries, trade relationships and trade volumes over time through a quantitative
approach. Therefore, we build unweighted and weighted IOTNs based on complex
network theory. We analyze the stability through analyzing the evolution of the
structure of IOTNs on the aspects of short-term and long-term. In short-term stability,
we analyze the stability of the number of countries and the stability of oil trade
relationships from unweighted and weighted perspectives. In long-term stability, we
identify trade relationships that are maintained from 1996 to 2014, and analyze the
long term existing relationships on the aspect of oil trade volumes distribution in
countries, trade volumes distribution in continents and the evolution of trade volumes.
The paper is organized as follows. The first part is introduction. The second part
describes the data, constructs IOTN model and provides the method to quantitatively
measure the stability of IOTN. Our results are in the third part. The part four is the
discussion of our results and conclusion.

2. Data and model

2.1 Data
The international oil trade data is downloaded from UN Comtrade from 1996 to
2014, including 234 countries and areas and 22,002 trade relationships. The
commodity name is “petroleum oils, oils from bituminous minerals, crude” (HS code
270900).

2.2 Model
We construct directed unweighted IOTNs and directed weighted IOTNs. The
nodes represent countries, the edges represent the oil trade relationships between two
countries, and the direction of the edges represents the direction of the oil trade flows.
We use oil trade volumes as edge weights. Fig.1 shows the evolution of weighted
IOTNs from different years. A sample model of network structures and matrices in
year t and t+1 are shown in Fig. 2, there are 6 countries named A, B, C, D, E, F. Oil
trade relationships exist among four countries named A, B, C and D in the year t. The
4
edge from C to A indicates that C exports oil to A. While, there is no edge between A
and F, it means A and F have no oil trade relationships. There are other oil trade
relationships among five countries named A, B, C, E and F in the year t+1, so we can
clearly see the changes in trade relationships from t to t+1. In this paper, we build
networks using adjacency matrices. In an unweighted network, C exports oil to A in
year t, so in the adjacency matrix of t. Because C does not export oil to
A in year t+1, there is no edge between A and C in the network (t+1) and
. In a weighted network, is the trade volume and is
zero.

Fig.1. The weighted networks of the international oil trade in different years. The
sizes of nodes represent the number of its oil exporters, and if the number of oil
exporters of a country is larger the size of the node will be larger. The widths of edges
represent oil trade volumes from exporters to importers, and if oil trade volume of an
edge is larger the edge will be thicker.

5
 Fig. 2. The network structures and matrices of year t and t+1 (sample model)

2.3 Short-term stability

The short-term stability describes the change in the number of trade countries,
trade relationships and trade volumes over two years. We provide three indicators to
study the short-term stability of IOT comprehensively.
(1) The short-term stability of the number of countries (node)
The short-term stability of the number of countries represents node stability and
measures the changes in the number of countries between two networks from the year
t to t+1. A previous study [39] defined node stability as follows:

(1)

Where is the short-term stability of the number of countries and

N(t) is the set of countries who join the international oil trade in t.
is the number of common countries in t and t+1. is the number of
union countries in t and t+1. The value of is between 0 and 1, wherein

6
if the value of increases, the change in the number of countries in two
networks decreases; in other words, the stability of the number of countries increases.
(2) The short-term stability of oil trade relationships (edge)
The short-term stability of trade relationships is edge stability, which measures
the change in the oil trade relationship between two networks from t to t+1. In
unweighted network, the stability of trade relationships is measured by
and the function is written as follows:

(2)

Where is the set of international oil trade relationships in t,

is the number of common trade relationships in t and t+1. is
the number of union trade relationships in t and t+1.
In a weighted network, the short-term stability of trade relationships not only
considers the change in trade relationships but also the change in trade volumes. In
Fig.2, it shows the change in network structure from t to t+1. The trade relationships
change from t to t+1, thus it causes the instability of IOTN. Meanwhile, some
relationships, such as the relationships from A to B and from C to B, always exist but
their trade volumes maybe change. So we introduce trade volumes into the formula.
We design a method based on the similarity of two matrices to define weighted trade
relationship stability, which is measured by . The formula is written
as follows.
When ,

(3)
Where n is the number of union countries between two years, M is the number of
union trade relationships between two years, and i and j represent countries.
represents the oil trade volume of i to j in year t. The value of
7
 is between -1 and 1, and as this value increases, the stability of trade
relationships increases. For example, combining Fig.2, n is equal to 6, including A, B,
C, D, E, F. M is equal to 6, including trade relationships from A to B, A to D, C to A,
C to B, A to F, C to E. Supposing all of the trade volumes are 1 in t and 2 in t+1,

and , then , so the

short-term stability between t and t+1 is -0.5.

2.4 Long-term stability

The long-term stability of IOT describes the change in trade relationships and

trade volumes from year to . In the evolution of IOTN, some oil trade

relationships between countries always maintain over time, which is named long term
existing trade relationships in our research, while some relationships break in certain
years. We calculate the proportion of the sum of trade volumes of long term existing

trade relationships in total trade volumes of all trade relationships from to to

measure the long-term stability. The long-term stability is defined by and

the formula is written as follows.

(5)

(6)

Where i, j,  and  represent countries. is the set of international oil trade

relationships in year . is the set of long term existing trade relationships

from to . represents the oil trade volume of country i to j in . So the

numerator of formula (5) is the sum trade volumes of common trade relationships

from to , and the denominator part is the total trade volumes of all trade

relationships from to . In this paper, we analyze the long-term stability over the

whole sample period, so and .

8
3 Result
3.1 Statistical description of the IOTN
Fig. 3 shows the evolution of total IOT volumes. Before 2005, the total trade
volumes grew rapidly. However, the trade volumes declined between 2005 and 2007,
but increased and reached the peak point in 2008. After 2008, the total trade volumes
tended to decline. Fig. 4 shows the evolution of the number of IOT countries and
trade relationships and they had rising trends overall, which were always fluctuating
over time.

Fig. 3. The evolution of the total IOT volumes (kg)

9
 Fig. 4. The evolution of the number of IOT countries and trade relationships

Fig. 5. The evolution of IOTN density

The density of a network reflects its completeness, which is used to measure the
tightness among the countries in the IOTN. The value is equal to the number of actual
edges divided by the maximum number of theoretical edges. Supposing there are N
nodes and E edges in a network and the edges are directed, the density of the network
is depicted as follows:

(7)

The density of the IOTN refers to the closeness of trade among all of the
involved countries. In addition to the data presented in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, the growth
10
rate of the countries was 49.17% from 1996 to 2004 and the growth rate of the
relationships was 90.74%, which was less than the theoretical growth of 123%,
thereby leading to a decrease in density. Although the number of countries declined
4.35% from 2005 to 2014, the number of trade relationships grew 17.08%, thereby
increasing the density in this period. In 2003, the number of countries and trade
relationships declined, but the magnitude of the reduction in trade relationships was
greater than that in the number of countries; therefore, the density declined. In 2004,
the number of countries and trade relationships increased; because the increase in
trade relationships was smaller than the increase in the number of countries, the
density declined. The density decreased in 2010 because the number of trade
relationships declined. Overall, Fig. 5 demonstrates that fluctuations in density reflect
instability in oil trade.
Table 1 Some other statistical indicators of IOTN under different years
Average weighted The shortest path Clustering
Year Average degree
degree(1010) length coefficient
1996 9.900 2.51 2.951 0.221
1997 11.162 2.60 2.849 0.240
1998 11.206 2.57 3.072 0.245
1999 12.082 2.57 2.990 0.256
2000 12.220 2.32 2.989 0.279
2001 12.150 2.45 2.965 0.272
2002 13.674 2.33 2.846 0.271
2003 12.798 2.51 2.874 0.234
2004 12.66 2.44 2.886 0.238
2005 13.304 2.53 2.888 0.273
2006 14.288 2.58 2.840 0.267
2007 14.622 2.50 2.760 0.271
2008 14.928 2.61 2.688 0.290
2009 15.492 2.51 2.726 0.260
2010 14.710 2.49 2.794 0.280
2011 15.512 2.31 2.664 0.270
2012 15.822 2.48 2.686 0.309
2013 15.762 2.46 2.703 0.278
2014 16.284 2.41 2.679 0.311

Table 1 provides some other statistical indicators of IOTN from 1996 to 2014.
We can note that the average degree and clustering coefficient of IOTN tended to
11
increase, while the shortest path length trended to decline. The average weighted
degree fluctuated greatly and had a decline trend since 2008. So IOT became more
and more dense and the distribution of trade volumes became more and more
dispersive.

3.2 The short-term stability

How do the number of countries and relationships influence trade stability? How
to measure the stability of IOTN between two years? To address these questions, we
design three stability calculation methods and analyze the evolution of IOTN stability.
The short-term stability analyzes the changes in the number of trade countries and
trade relationships over two years.
(1) The short-term stability of the number of countries
The short-term stability of the number of countries is the variation degree of
countries that participate in the international oil trade between two years. As shown in
Fig. 6, the stability of the number of countries tended to increase before 2006 and
reached its maximum of 0.8860 in 2005 to 2006. However, the stability tended to
decrease after 2006, dropping to 0.8290 in 2013 to 2014. In general, the variance of
the stability is 0.0005 and the standard deviation is 0.0230, indicating that the
fluctuation of the stability is small. The country stability is more than 0.7700 between
every two years, illustrating that the change in the number of trade countries is small.

12
 Fig. 6. The evolution of the short-term stability of the number of trade countries

(2) The short-term stability of oil trade relationships

The short-term stability of trade relationships is the variation degree of oil trade
relationships between two years. We build international oil trade unweighted directed
networks and international oil trade weighted directed networks to study the structure
stability and the structure-trade volume stability of oil trade relationships.
Notably, Fig. 7 shows that the structure stabilities are between 0.47 and 0.55,
with an average of 0.5128. The variance is 0.0003 and the standard deviation is
0.0186, indicating that the fluctuation in structure stability is small. Thus, nearly half
of the relationships had been changed (break or build) between two years. The
structure of IOTN was significantly changed every year. However, the structure-trade
volume stabilities exceed 0.95, with an average of 0.9787. The variance is 3.8*10-5,
and the standard deviation is only 0.0062, indicating a very small fluctuation. So the
structure-trade volume stabilities are very high. This result indicates that trade
volumes have a significant impact on the stability of relationships, and trade volumes
enhance the stability of trade relationships. Fig. 8 is the evolution of the change in the
international oil trade volumes between two years, the blue line represents the sum of
unchanged trade relationships’ trade volumes in two years and the green line

13
represents the sum of changed trade relationships’ trade volumes in two years. The red
line is the proportion of unchanged trade relationships’ trade volumes in total trade
volumes in two years. We can see that the sum of unchanged trade relationships’ trade
volumes in two years exceed 3*1012 Kg and account for over 93% of the total trade
volumes over two years, and the proportion remained at about 98% and exceeds 99%
in 2013-2014. So the oil trade volumes of unchanged relationships, which account for
about 50% of total relationships, account for about 98% of total trade volumes in two
years.

Fig. 7. The evolution of the short-term stability of IOT relationships

14
 Fig. 8. The evolution of the change in the international oil trade volumes (kg)
between two years

3.3 The long-term stability

The long-term stability analyzes the long term existing trade countries and trade
relationships from 1996 to 2014. The long term existing relationships, which always
exist from 1996 to 2014, have been identified and extracted. We find 186 long term
existing trade relationships involving 66 countries. The long-term stability of oil trade
is 0.672. That is to say, the oil trade volumes among these 66 countries account for
67.2% of total trade volumes in this period. We analyze the long-term stability on the
aspect of oil trade volumes distribution in countries, trade volumes distribution in
continents and the evolution of trade volumes.
(1) The top 20 long term existing trade relationships in trade volumes from 1996
to 2014 are listed in Table 2. Oil exporters are almost Middle Eastern countries and oil
importers are concentrated in countries whose economic are developing rapidly. On
the one hand, economic developing countries, such as the USA, Japan and China,
require large amounts of oil to support their economic development. On the other
hand, Middle Eastern countries produce high-quality oil, especially Saudi Arabia, and
15
their economy relies on exporting oil. Thus, they are oil interdependent countries. For
example, the USA maintains oil trade relationships with Canada, Saudi Arabia,
Mexico and Venezuela with large amount of oil. Japan maintains oil trade
relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. China maintains oil
trade relationships with Saudi Arabia and Angola. The import trade volumes of USA
account for 31.31% of the total trade volumes of the long term existing relationships
from 1996 to 2014, so the USA plays an important role in the long term existing
relationships.
Table 2. The top 20 long term existing trade relationships in trade volumes from 1996 to 2014
Proportion to the sum
Accumulated volumes of
trade volumes of the
the long term existing
Oil exporters Oil importers long term existing
trade relationships from
relationships from
1996 to 2014 (1012 kg)
1996 to 2014
Canada USA 1.63 0.061
Saudi Arabia USA 1.29 0.048
Mexico USA 1.20 0.045
Venezuela USA 1.19 0.045
Saudi Arabia Japan 1.08 0.040
United Arab Emirates Japan 9.54 0.358
Nigeria USA 7.66 0.029
Norway United Kingdom 7.52 0.028
Saudi Arabia Republic of Korea 7.12 0.027
Russian Federation Germany 6.01 0.023
Russian Federation Netherlands 5.69 0.021
Saudi Arabia China 4.67 0.017
Iran Japan 4.37 0.016
Russian Federation Italy 4.05 0.015
Qatar Japan 3.84 0.014
Libya Italy 3.74 0.014
Angola China 3.73 0.014
Angola USA 3.49 0.013
Russian Federation Poland 3.48 0.013
Norway Netherlands 3.33 0.012

(2) We divide countries into continents, and quantitatively analyze the stability in
space dimension. Fig. 9 (a) reflects the intercontinental distribution of accumulated
trade volumes of the long term existing relationships from 1996 to 2014. The largest
16
trade volumes are between Asian to Asian countries, European to European countries
and North American to North American countries, accounting for 58.94% of the total
trade volumes of the long term existing relationships. European countries import lots
of oil from Asian and African countries, and North American countries import oil
from African and South American countries. Fig. 9 (b) reflects the intercontinental
distribution of the accumulated trade volumes of total relationships from 1996 to 2014.
The largest trade volumes are also between Asian to Asian countries, European to
European countries and North American to North American countries, accounting for
54.70% of the total trade volumes of total relationships. We can note that the
distribution of the two cases is similar, so the intercontinental distribution of
accumulated trade volumes of the long term existing relationships can represent the
distribution of total relationships.

Fig. 9. The intercontinental distribution of trade volumes from 1996 to 2014.

(a) is the distribution of accumulated trade volumes of the long term existing
relationships from 1996 to 2014, and (b) is the distribution of accumulated trade
volumes of total relationships from 1996 to 2014. As the color becomes darker, the
portion of the relationship decreases. The X-axis indicates oil importing areas,
whereas the Y-axis indicates oil exporting areas.

(3) The evolution of oil trade volumes from 1996 to 2014 are shown in Fig. 10.
The blue line represents trade volumes of total relationships, and the red line
represents trade volumes of the long term existing relationships from 1996 to 2014.
17
The trade volumes of all the relationships tended to increase before 2008 and decrease
after 2008, while the trade volumes of the long term existing relationships tended to
increase before 2005 and then decrease, which is before the global financial crisis.
From Fig. 11, we can note that the proportion of trade volumes of the long term
existing relationships in total trade volumes tend to decline from 1996 to 2014. In
1996, the proportion was 82.74%, while 58.65% in 2014. Because of trade globalism,
countries begin to seek diversified trade partners and import oil from many countries
to reduce energy risks. Thus, the influence of the long term existing relationships is
gradually weakened. Especially, there was a sharp decline from 2010 to 2014. Some
oil trade volumes between countries are shown in Fig. 12. We note that the USA’s
import volumes were declining. The trade volumes from Saudi Arabia to the USA
were in a downward trend, whereas the trade volumes from Saudi Arabia to Japan and
China were on the rise. The trade volumes from Russia to China showed a rapid
growth trend.

Fig. 10. The evolution of oil trade volumes from 1996 to 2014

18
 Fig. 11. The proportion of trade volumes of the long term existing relationships in total trade

volumes from 1996 to 2014

Fig. 12. Some oil trade volumes between countries from 2010 to 2014.

4 Discussion and conclusion

In this paper, we construct unweighted and weighted IOTNs based on complex
network theory using data from 1996 to 2014. First, we analyze the IOTN’s evolution
19
of topological properties. Next, we design three methods to calculate the short-term
stability of IOT. We also conduct further quantitative research to explore the reason
why the stability of unweighted and weighted network is significantly different. In
addition, we quantitatively analyze the long-term stability of IOT. Some discussions
and contributions of our results are as follows.
(1) We provide a method to measure and analyze oil trade stability considering
the IOT as a complex network system. Compared to the previous studies [39], our
method not only consider the stability of the number of countries, but also consider
the trade relationships and the trade volumes from a global perspective. Furthermore,
we analyze the stability of IOTN from short-term and long-term perspectives. This
method could be applied to analyze the stability of other goods and services trade, and
provides a way to quantitatively measure the stability of complex networks.
(2) From a short-term perspective, in spite of the violently changes in the
structure of IOT, it is very stable from a trade volumes perspective. Structure
stabilities with and without trade volume have significant differences and trade
volumes have a significant impact on the short-term stability of relationships. When
analyzing the stability of IOTN from a weighted perspective, we believe that trade is
stable; however, from an unweighted perspective, the unweighted networks can better
reflect the actual evolution of IOTN and the stability is about 0.5. Besides, the
unchanged relationships between two years control the most of the trade volumes, and
the proportion is about 98%. We provide a view to analyze the stability of complex
network from a short-term perspective and study the difference of stability between
weighted network and unweighted network to deeply explore the evolution
characteristics of network.
(3) From a long-term perspective, the long term existing countries and trade
relationships can represent the situation of whole IOT. In these long term existing
relationships, oil exporters and oil importers are interdependent countries. Besides,
the intercontinental distribution of the trade volumes of the long term existing
relationships can represent the distribution of total relationships to some extent and
countries in the same continent are easier to maintain oil trade relationships. However,
20
the trade volumes of these long term existing relationships are always changing and
the evolution trends of oil trade volumes of total relationships and the long term
existing relationships are similar. So the change of the trade volumes of the long term
existing relationships can reflect the change of IOT pattern and economic
development to some extent. The stability of complex network from a long-term
perspective provides a method to filter some unimportant nodes and edges and
analyze the evolution of the weight of edges over time, which can represent the whole
network.
In the future, we will further research the long term existing relationships. For
example, the trade volumes of the long term existing trade relationships tended to
decrease after 2005, while the trade volumes of total relationships began to decrease
since 2008. We will conduct more experiments to approve whether the decline of the
trade volumes of the long term existing relationships could be considered as a
warning single for the decline of the global economy since oil is the lifeblood of
national real economy. We will also examine the trade stability of other fossil energies
to determine whether the same properties exist among oil and other types of energy.

Acknowledgments
This research is supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No.
9174041), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No.
2-9-2015-303), the scholarship from China Scholarship Council (CSC) (Grant No.
201606405009) and the fund from Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment
for Resource and Environment, Ministry of Land and Resources (Grant No.
CCA2016.10).

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