As a result, this could in the next five years push oil
prices higher, the IEA’s Chief Economist Fatih Birol said at a briefing on the
sidelines of the agency’s two-day ministerial meeting.
The IEA estimates the world needs to spend $38 trillion to
meet projected energy demand up to 2035, up 15 percent from their 2010 forecast
of $33 trillion.
World energy ministers and industry leaders started a
two-day meeting on Tuesday hosted by the IEA to discuss investment needs with
energy-hungry emerging economies.
Birol said there was reluctance from some oil producers to
invest enough. “One of the question mark is over the Middle East and Northern
Africa region which is crucial to meet demand growth and to meet decline in the
existing production,” he said.
“Some countries
seem to follow different oil policies not to raise production as much as the
market would like to see,” he said. “In other countries, they are not able to
put money for projects on the table because they have other pressing issues in
their countries to meet demands from the population.” “In some countries because of the unrest the projects are
not going forward as much as we would like to see,” Birol added.
The IEA said 90 percent of the growth in oil production in
the next 10 years needs to come from Middle Eastern and North African
countries.
In an excerpt from the World Energy Outlook to be published
on Nov. 9, the IEA said $10 trillion would be needed for oil investments, $16.9
trillion for power, $9.5 trillion for natural gas from 2011 to 2035.
In a speech to the IEA’s ministerial delegates, Eni Chief
Executive Paolo Scaroni said that while the impact of the Arab Spring on energy
security was difficult to assess for now, he had good reasons to be optimistic.
