IEA secures energy alliances with India, Russia
Officials with India and Russia each signed deals this week with the International Energy Agency (IEA), pledging to strengthen bilateral co-operation in areas such as oil and gas security, energy efficiency and renewables, and overall dialogue.
In India’s case, that country agreed to strengthen its co-operation in oil and gas security as part of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed at the IEA Ministerial meeting in Paris.
Mr. Vivek Kumar, joint secretary for international co-operation, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MPNG) of India, signed the agreement with IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven.
Under the deal, India’s MPNG and the IEA agreed to work together on further strengthening and developing the oil stockholding regime and emergency response policies in India as well as supporting broader dissemination and exchange of available information in the oil and gas sectors.
The enhanced co-operation set forth in the MoU will involve activities such as Indian participation in relevant IEA meetings and events, and the sharing of IEA’s best practices with regard to emergency response measures in the event of oil supply disruptions, the parties said.
India is one of the IEA partner countries – countries that are not IEA members but work closely with the IEA in a number of key areas.
India’s MPNG, for example, has worked closely with the agency in the area of oil and gas security for many years through joint workshops and regular exchanges on oil and gas market developments.
Earlier this year, the MPNG and the IEA established a bilateral hotline for emergency preparedness which opens a valuable communication channel.
Both India and the IEA said they recognize the importance of creating conditions in which energy security policies and capabilities of India can be further strengthened to support India’s sustainable economic development.
In Russia’s case, the Russian Energy Agency (REA) and the IEA agreed to strengthen bilateral co-operation on energy efficiency and renewables as well as overall dialogue on global and Russian energy market trends.
Mr. Timur Ivanov, general director of the REA, and IEA deputy executive director Richard H. Jones signed the MoU.
In that MOU, the Russian Energy Agency and the IEA agreed to work together on further strengthening and developing energy efficiency policy as well as energy efficiency indicators to enable effective monitoring of progress in reaching the Russian goal to reduce the energy intensity of Russian GDP by 40% by 2020.
The enhanced co-operation set forth in the MoU will involve activities such as joint studies and discussions on current and projected trends in global and Russian energy markets.
The MoU also covers studies on energy policy, the sharing of IEA’s best practices and assessments of regulatory and financial challenges that the development and deployment of new technologies are facing in promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Russia is also one of the IEA partner countries. The Russian Ministry of Energy, for example, has worked closely with the agency since signing an MOU in 1994, the IEA said.
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