Jun 2008 - OPEC

OPEC bulletin 6/08
12
Dr Carlos Arturo Flórez Piedrahita, Executive Secretary of the Latin-American Energy
Organization (OLADE), with Abdalla Salem El-Badri (r), OPEC Secretary General,
during his visit to the OPEC Secretariat in May.
ministerial meetings will now be organized around themes
so that those attending can speak specifically about a
topic and, thus, perhaps arrive at some consensus on
commitments to be made.
Under Floréz, the entire organization was also reorganized
into several sub-regions, including Central
America, the Andean Countries, the Southern Cone and
the Caribbean. Simultaneously, a sub-regional Central
American office was established in Guatemala. The main
office in Quito will instead oversee the countries of the
Andean region. “With these kinds of changes, we want
to decentralize our work,” Floréz said. He added that
OLADE is also considering opening sub-regional offices
in the Caribbean and the Southern Cone. “With four or
five sub-regions, we think we will be much more effective
in our work,” he maintained.
Founded to coordinate and unify activities and policies
in the area of energy, OLADE’s over-arching goal is
still integration. Such integration can be achieved simply
between two countries, or among more, explained Floréz.
Much of this, of course, relies on political will. But it also
depends on supply and demand issues, as well as the
quality, quantity and price of energy products.
More importantly, perhaps, it depends on the harmonization
of policies and regulations across the region.
“We, as an organization, need to create compatible regulations
[among Member Countries] so that legislation and
regulation of the energy sector can be handled similarly
and in a compatible way,” he said.
Energy integration
Floréz is quick to point out that it is not just one particular
energy source that is of interest. Whether it is fossil
fuels, renewables, or nuclear energy, the organization is
not going to reject any of them outright. “One cannot be
dogmatic,” he said. On the contrary, OLADE studies all
energy sources since their final use depends on the availability
of the resource base in each country.
To date, OLADE’s Member Countries have provided
constant support for its mission. The nine members of
the organization’s current Board of Directors include
Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, each of which is a very strong
global energy player. To a degree, said Floréz, they help
to set the tone and the pace of OLADE’s work. But other
countries, too, regardless of their size, have made commitments
to participate in the integration efforts. In fact,
since energy integration can be seen as primarily a technical
matter, many countries are willing to work together,
despite possible political differences.
“We are all very rich in natural resources,” Floréz
added, giving several examples: Colombia has a lot of
hydroelectricity; Venezuela is rich in hydrocarbons; Bolivia
has growing reserves of natural gas; Brazil, too, recently
discovered significant oil reserves. With these resources,
there is simply no reason why the region’s countries
should not work together to combat the poverty that has
afflicted our people for centuries,” he said.
In the same way that Latin America’s natural resources
are spread around the region, so is the market for such
resources. There is no reason for this, said Floréz. Part of
OLADE’s mission, then, is to try to work through national
governments to achieve the integration of these energy
markets. Equally important, he said, is to try to identify
those countries that have had the greatest success