Gulf and European Energy Supply Security - Feem-project.net

Energy Security: Potential for EU-GCC Cooperation
a reaction on the part of regional and international
forces stationed in the Gulf.
Of course, this discussion is based on the
assumption that the main Western powers will
remain actively engaged in Gulf security. If the
United States and European forces currently
present in the Gulf were to be withdrawn from the
region, the strategic calculation, especially of Iran,
might change. However, there is little reason why
the US and European states should withdraw their
presence from a region of such obvious importance
to them.
3.2 The Rest of the World
Potential for interstate conflict still exists
in several regions of the world, but some of the
major cases are for countries that are not oil or gas
producers (India/Pakistan, successors of former
Yugoslavia) and, therefore, would have little impact
on oil and gas production, besides having low
probability.
Concluding Considerations on Oil Production
and the Threat of Armed Conflicts
Evidence presented in this section and the
discussion of several individual conflicts and
scenarios for the future point to the conclusion
that the global oil and gas supply system may be
much less vulnerable to conflict than is commonly
assumed.
The world has become a less conflict-prone place,
and there is no strong reason to assume that this
trend might be reversed in the coming two to three
decades. Numerous domestic conflicts continue
to plague certain regions, notably Sub-Saharan
Africa and the Middle East, sometimes attracting
armed foreign interference. However, it is difficult
to propose scenarios that would have an impact on
oil supplies bigger than what the world has already
experienced and rather brilliantly dealt with.
However, these conclusions do not justify
complacency. Supply disruptions of an order
comparable to those experienced in the past are
possible, and the ingredients which allowed for
successful dealing with the situation in the past
should be maintained.
4
The main tool to cope with supply disruptions
in the past has been the unused production
capacity of major producers, notably Saudi Arabia.
This remains a cornerstone of global oil security.
Strategic stocks have rarely been used, but have an
important deterrent effect and may turn out to be
especially useful in case of a more severe crisis of
short duration.
4. Restrictions of Passage, Accidents and
oil transportation norms
The logistic aspects are frequently mentioned as
a source of uncertainty, generally as part of a long
list of other potentially disturbing factors. In this
section, we shall focus on seaborne transportation
of oil and oil products and consider how oil maritime
transportation logistics may affect oil supply security.
There are three different dimensions to this
question:
1. restrictions of passage, meaning wilful
2.
interference with the freedom of navigation on
the part of riparian or other actors, including
both state and non-state actors
accidents – involving one or more tankers and
entailing environmental or other damages
which may lead to the temporary closure of
international waterways
3.
oil transportation norms, that is rules governing
navigation
waterways.
and passage through specific
A large proportion of global oil traffic is seaborne.
Approximately 50 percent of globally produced oil
and a higher percentage of internationally traded
oil is transported by sea.
4.1 Oil Choke Points
The EC Green Paper on Energy Network
Assessment 3 has the following definition of choke
points:
“Chokepoints are narrow channels used for
transit of large volumes of international sea trade
including oil. The concerns related to chokepoints
can be different: geopolitical in the case of transit
through potentially unstable areas, environmental
and in particular in relation to damage from an
accident, economic if transit through a chokepoint