29/01/2012

For the new, almost just arrived secretary general at the International Energy Forum Secretariat, Dr. Aldo Flores-Quiroga, this must have been a hectic week. While the secretariat is busy preparing for the 13th IEF Ministerial and the 5th International Energy Business Forum (IEBF) to be held in Kuwait from March 12-14, it hosted two events - one after the other last week.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), the Organization of Petroleum.

Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the International Energy Forum (IEF) jointly hosted the second Symposium on Energy Outlooks at IEF Headquarters in Riyadh, on Jan. 23-24.

And this has been a master stroke - in some senses. For the IEA and the OPEC represent two sides of the coin. The raison d'etre of the two organizations is different - if not antagonistic. OPEC was created - to wrest the control of the oil markets from the Seven Sisters. And the IEA was created by the consuming nations, in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis, by the likes of Henry Kissinger, basically to counter the producers.

Conceded, over the last few years things have changed considerably. The IEA and the OPEC are no more on the collision course - on each and every issue. They converge too and quite often. And this is a real break from the past.

Yet the fact remains that the two organizations represent different, often clashing, interests. Hence to differ between is nothing - but - normal in some senses.

Yet facts also testify that the two organizations are putting out their respective analyses of events impacting and overtaking the crude markets, virtually at the same moment, every month and every year. Yet both look at things from a little different prism. Hence the deductions often do not match.

And this is why the idea of bringing the two - at the headquarters of the IEFS - created basically to generate producers - consumer dialogue - appears such a timely thing.

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Syed Rashid Husain - Arab News