The performance of cooperation strategies for enhancing the efficiency of international oil trade networks

Abstract The efficiency of the international oil trade networks (iOTNs) is an important measure of the efficient redistribution of oil resources among various economies. Adopting cooperation strategies between economies can enhance the efficiency of the iOTNs. We design a series of trade cooperation strategies based on trade volumes, geographic locations and local similarities of economies, and quantitatively analyse the impact of new trade relations on the efficiency of the iOTNs under different trade cooperation strategies. We find that the oil trade system rapidly developed into a more efficient system for the flows of resources and market information. When the proportion of newly added trade relationships is fairly large, the win–win strategy can improve the network efficiency the most; otherwise, the common neighbour strategy performs the best.