IEA to Increase Role in Global Gas Market Coordination
The International Energy Agency (IEA) will increase its role in the global gas market to provide more information on trading, storage capacities and flows, aiming to improve transparency in the growing market, its executive director said on Wednesday.
Fatih Birol, who took over as director in September, said there was a need to broaden the organisation's work given the increasing role of natural gas in energy security.
The Paris-based IEA was founded in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil shock in order to advise western economies on how to deal with supply disruptions.
"In addition to oil markets, given the growing LNG (liquefied natural gas) flows throughout the world, the IEA will now more and more work to coordinate the global gas security aspects," Birol told a news conference in Paris, following a meeting of ministers of member countries.
"There are many LNG facilities and we will have more in the future and there is no data worldwide on what are their capacities, what are their maintenance time and what are the cargoes going in and out," he added.
Ernest Moniz, U.S. Energy Secretary, who chaired the IEA meeting, told reporters there were many concerns about energy security in natural gas supply, particularly in Europe, where Russia supplies some eastern European countries with all their gas.
"There are a lot of issues around what will be a changing market as LNG begins to play a greater role," Moniz said.
(By Bate Felix)
