Participation of Agency at the meetings of the International Energy Agency

Two representatives of the Emergency Oil Stock Agency participated in meetings of the International Energy Agency (IEA) working groups in Paris on 14-th and 15-th June 2017- Standing Group on Emergency Questions (SEQ) and Standing Group on Oil Markets (SOM).

The SEQ meeting topics included mainly the issues of emergency situations with regard to the supplies of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and electricity and preparedness of member countries for their solution. Accession of new member (Mexico) was announced, which should be finalised in coming weeks. Accession of Mexico as an important oil producing country to IEA will contribute to the collective oil security in the world, while IEA will continue to make effort to enhance cooperation also with various other non-member countries for this purpose. Emergency response review evaluation of Austria and Australia were presented at the meeting along with the mid-term review of Canada. Presented schedule of following reviews included also mid-term review of the Slovak Republic planned for October 2018. Important topic of the meeting was also cyber security of energy supplies and preparations for next year’s Emergency response exercise (ERE 9), which is organised by the IEA regularly in two years intervals.

Subject of the SOM meeting was mainly the actual situation on the global oil market, while the main topic was especially the OPEC deal on the crude oil production cuts with the intent to raise the global oil price, which tend to oscillate around the level of 50 USD per barrel in the long term. However, the obligation of OPEC countries to cut the production, supported also by Russian Federation, has not had the intended effect so far and the oil price is currently below the level of 50 USD per barrel. One reason for up to now failure of the deal is also raising of the production in non-OPEC countries, which use the opportunity to strengthen their market share at the expense of missing OPEC supplies. Other topics included development of electric cars utilization in present and future, monitoring of tankers on seas and oceans and overall outlook for energy and climate to 2040.