Meetings of the International Energy Agency – March 2019

On 19-21 March 2019 two representatives of the Emergency Oil Stocks Agency participated in meetings of the International Energy Agency (IEA) working groups in Paris - Standing Group on Emergency Questions (SEQ) and Standing Group on Oil Markets (SOM).

Subject of the SEQ meetings was mainly issues of preparedness of member countries for the emergencies in the area of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and electricity supplies. IEA secretariat presented mainly up-to-date information on process of stockholding obligation of IEA member countries evaluation, cooperation with non-member and candidate countries and emergency response reviews of several countries were presented.

The SOM meeting was dedicated mainly to current situation on the global oil market. Global oil prices had been falling continuously in the last quarter of year 2018 but they have recovered slightly since the start of the year 2019. Total oil demand in the world is expected to rise by about 1.4 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2019, however this could change in case of potential global economic turmoil. Global oil supply is currently at level of 100 mb/d, which is higher by about 1.5 mb/d compared to previous year mainly due to higher non-OPEC production, especially from U.S. On the other hand the OPEC started to apply agreed production cuts and sanctions on Iran and Venezuela production decline are still in place. In the next agenda points the IEA secretariat presented its study on analysis and forecasts in oil sector to 2024.