Pathway and key factor identification of third-party market cooperation of China's overseas energy investment projects

There are still few studies on the third-party market cooperation of China's overseas energy investment projects. The current study selects typical cases of third-party energy market cooperation, combined with risk manage-ment theory, and uses qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and machine learning (ID3) algorithms to analyze the influencing paths and key factors of third-party market cooperation of China's overseas energy investment projects. The results depicted that a single factor did not constitute a necessary condition to affect the effec-tiveness of China's third-party energy market cooperation, and the social environment, project organization, and cooperation subjects jointly formed a diversified configuration. We found that each four influence paths, which are "social environment-project organization-cooperation subject", "social environment-cooperation subject", "social environment-project organization," and "project organization-cooperation subject,"; Institutional envi-ronment and conflict of interest are the core factors in the path conditions. The disturbance intensity of conflict of interest was higher than that of the institutional environment. This study not only complements the quantitative analysis of existing literature but also provides theoretical analysis and practical guidance for China to better carry out third-party market energy cooperation projects with other countries.