Slovak Republic participated on the Emergency response exercise ERE 9 organized by the IEA

On 7 February 2018 a meeting of Commission for oil security – NESO took place in the building of the Administration of State Material Reserves of the Slovak Republic (ASMR SR). The NESO commission is an advisory body to the Chairman of the ASMR SR in the area of security of crude oil and petroleum products supply. Members of the NESO commission are especially the most important representatives of the oil industry, relevant bodies of state administration, as well as the Emergency Oil Stocks Agency.

The Chairman of the ASMR SR may convene the NESO meeting anytime in case of need to solve an emergency situation. Meeting on 7 February 2018 was convened as unscheduled meeting, whose agenda was the Emergency response exercise (ERE 9) organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA). ERE 9 exercise consisted of presentation of crude oil disruption hypothetical scenario and subsequent training of communication systems between IEA secretariat and member countries, as well as between relevant bodies within individual member countries. Task of the NESO members in this exercise was to discuss the hypothetical scenario, which involved disruption of crude oil supplies from Saudi Arabia to global market in amount of 2,3 million barrel per day, further to assess its potential impact on the Slovak Republic and to recommend to the ASMR SR Chairman further steps to solve the hypothetical emergency situation.

Part of the exercise was proposal from IEA to activate collective action, which would consist in release of member countries’ emergency stocks in designated amount for the purpose of substitution of the missing supplies to global market. Share of the Slovak Republic on this collective action would represent emergency oil stocks release in the amount of 26 thousand tonnes. Objective of the exercise is test of the communication and decision procedures, so no physical release was realised in the course of the exercise. After discussing the situation the NESO members recommended to the ASMR SR Chairman to join the IEA collective action according to the international obligation of the Slovak Republic. The Emergency Oil Stocks Agency subsequently confirmed participation of the Slovak Republic on the IEA collective action within the frame of the ERE 9 exercise on basis of the NESO recommendation and mandate from the ASMR SR Chairman. The exercise will continue throughout following two months in the form of emergency statistical data collection and their submission to the IEA by the ASMR SR.