The world needs more investments in oil and gas. The IEA changes its mind

The world needs upstream investments in existing oil and gas fields to support global energy security, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston.

The IEA famously said in 2021 that investments in new oil and gas fields were not necessary because the world would reach zero emissions in 2050. Now it has changed its mind, and suddenly!

Since 2021, the Paris-based agency has repeatedly said that the world does not need new long-term conventional oil and gas or coal mine projects approved after 2023, as increased clean energy deployment could lead to peak demand for fossil fuels this decade.

In this decade, the IEA, created in response to the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, has moved towards promoting investment and the transition to clean energy and has often expressed the view that net-zero emissions would not be achieved with investment in the production of new oil and gas.

These views, along with predictions that peak oil demand will occur this decade, have drawn harsh criticism from OPEC, which has repeatedly criticized the IEA for “dangerous” predictions that would harm consumers and “only lead to energy volatility on a potentially unprecedented scale.”

At CERAWeek, the IEA's Birol said: “I want to make it clear that… there will be a need for investment, especially to address the decline of existing fields.”

“There is a need for upstream investment in the oil and gas sector, period,” Birol added.

According to the IEA official, of the $400 billion in annual investments in oil and gas, $360 billion is intended to offset the decline of existing fields. So there is no room for expansion

Earlier this year, Neil Atkinson, former head of the IEA's oil industry and markets department, said the IEA was producing potentially “dangerously flawed ” reports because of its strong pro-transition bias.

Atkinson co-authored a report with Mark P. Mills, head of the National Center for Energy Analytics think tank, calling for the IEA to focus on its original purpose of monitoring oil market developments and industry prospects.

The article The World needs more investments in Oil and Gas. The IEA changes its mind comes from Economic Scenarios .

This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-mondo-ha-bisogno-di-piu-investimenti-in-petrolio-e-gas-la-aie/ on Wed, 12 Mar 2025 11:00:37 +0000.