Friday, 06 November 2024.
This is the subject of a recent article published by OPEC, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, about which we will elaborate today.
But before that, one phrase (in spite of debate) attributed to Sheikh Zaki Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister:
OPEC article starts like this:
“In launching its World Energy Outlook 2024, the IEA (International Energy Agency) stated that “the future of the global energy system is electric.” This follows its assertion that demand for coal, oil and gas will peak by the end of the decade. Furthermore, the IEA’s Executive Director stated, “In energy history, we’ve witnessed the Age of Coal and the Age of Oil – and we’re now moving at speed into the Age of Electricity, which will define the global energy system”.
In the article, OPEC discusses the fairness of these references to Age of Coal and the Age of Oil as “things of the past” considering that coal, oil and gas together still make up about 80% of the global energy mix.
It also highlights that “energy sources exist in a mutually dependent relationship”, instead of a locked “battle of competition and replacement”.
OPEC also challenges IEA’s belief that the World is ‘moving at speed’ towards a new Age of Electricity, due to the following considerations:
mass expansion in electricity requires an exponential increase in demand for critical minerals;
an unprecedented expansion of grid capacity required, for which it quotes an IEA own report that indicates that 80 million kilometres of power lines will be needed by 2040;
electricity grid, insulating cables and transformer oils dependent on essential petroleum-derived products;
mining vehicles and equipment dependent on diesel; and
steel and cement industries dependent on coal.
Energy security is the last topic of the article, when OPEC recalls “the energy priorities of the 685 million people who still have no access to electricity and the 2.1 billion people who continue to rely on unsafe fuels for cooking differ vastly to those advocating which energy type to choose... For the just and sustainable energy future that we all aspire to, OPEC continues to advocate for an ‘all-peoples, all-energies and all-technologies’ approach”.
Click at the image below for this OPEC’s 18 October 2024 article.
OPEC is headquartered in Europe. After five years in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1965 OPEC was moved to Vienna, Austria. The group was initially formed by five oil-producing developing countries - Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela - in Baghdad in September 1960 which was later joined by some other countries. Click here for a brief history of OPEC.
And about IEA, here are two articles we posted in 2024:
