Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
This is because it is, and has always been, worried about the reliability
of oil supplies. One factor here is that ninety percent of Japan's oil comes
from the Middle East, and of that fully one third is from Saudi Arabia.
Japan was an enthusiastic founder member of the IEA, precisely in order
to gain some international solidarity on energy security.
Big new consumers: China and
India
With the emergence of China and India, the IEA is no longer the predom-
inant oil consumers' club. Virtually all the growth in oil demand these
days is coming from developing countries, especially China and India. By
the IEA's own reckoning, non-IEA consumption for oil will match that
of all the OECD countries by 2015 and be substantially higher by 2030.
The IEA realizes that energy security is indivisible, in the sense that
panic-buying by countries the size of China and India could have big
impacts on the oil market and set off a scramble for oil resources. So the
IEA has for some years had an “outreach” programme towards Beijing and
Delhi, especially to persuade them to start building up their own strategic
oil reserves. Whether or not at the IEA's persuasion, China and India have
both started to create oil stockpiles, which might reach five hundred mil-
lion barrels for China and one hundred million barrels for India.
But it seems unlikely that China and India will ever join the IEA out-
right, and not only because of the obstacle that OECD membership is a
precondition for joining the energy agency. For neither China nor India
may be ready to take on the collective obligation to put oil stocks on the
market in an emergency. Both countries seem to put more faith in their
own energy security efforts - whether to build their own stocks purely for
their own emergency use, or to acquire equity stakes in foreign oil fields.
Fuelling the Chinese dragon
China became a net oil importer in 1983. By 2006 it was importing 3.7m
b/d or about fifty percent of its total consumption. In the absence of any
major change in policy, China will be importing over 13m b/d in 2030, or
80 percent of its consumption. The vast bulk (eighty percent) of China's
foreign oil purchases comes from the Middle East and Africa, and there-
fore has to transit the narrow Straits of Malacca (see p.205).
