The Oxford Energy Institute: A Successful Experiment in Producer-Consumer Dialogue
Walid Khadduri Al-Hayat - 02/09/07//
The international petroleum industry underwent a fundamental change in 1973 with the rise in crude oil prices from around $1-2 a barrel to around $11 a barrel in the initial stage. Instead of concessions for drilling and production, which were granted to giant oil firms for 99 years and covered entire states, as well as crude oil purchase and sales contracts limited to no more than 10 giant western companies, members of OAPEC (the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) began to change this economic situation, which had remained in place for the first six decades of the 20th century. The oil exporting countries began to play a direct and vital role in setting petroleum policies by adopting production policies, which directly affected crude oil prices and changed the foundations of what set price levels.
At the time, these bold decisions and policies led to a comprehensive change in the industry, trade and price of one of the most important and widespread strategic material that is internationally circulated. They were also accompanied by important national decisions at the state level, which led to the rise of national oil companies that were owned by producing and exporting states, which granted concessions for exploration, drilling and production in these states.
These young companies, which were managed by citizens of the exporting countries themselves, took responsibility for marketing their countries' oil, after this had been limited to the big foreign firms.
As a result of these changes, new and unfamiliar arrangements and operations became prominent in the petroleum industry, such as the rise in the number and diversity of participants in taking petroleum-related decisions, the appearance of new contracts for exploration and production, such as participatory contracts, in addition to the rise of a spot and futures market to buy and sell crude oil, instead of the long-term, price- and quantity-specific contracts.
This new situation created a tense climate between producers and consumers, on the one hand, and foreign and national companies, on the other. It was very difficult to find an objective forum in which representatives of these parties to discuss structural and hidden changes in one of the biggest and most important industries in the world.
These developments and changes required the formation of an unofficial and neutral forum in which an objective discussion of the increase in information and joint understanding of new developments could be held. At the end of the 1970s, the Oxford Energy Group was established; this forum comprises a limited number of senior officials from the international petroleum industry and it meets twice a year at St. Anthony's College at Oxford. It convenes to discuss the oil industry's issues of the day, in an unofficial manner, and without trying to arrive at specific resolutions. Instead, members meet for one day each time; these individuals include petroleum figures from exporting and consuming countries who exchange views and information about a topic that is decided upon beforehand, in order to boost the knowledge of both sides. After the establishment of this club and the meetings and repeated discussions by the elite of officials and those concerned in exporting countries, there arose the idea of establishing an annual seminar on energy, whose participants and lecturers would be from producing and consuming countries. The first meeting of the Oxford Energy Seminar convened during the first two weeks of September 1979. The 28th session of this seminar is now be being held, and taking part are more than 60 representatives of various aspects of the petroleum industry, from specific states and regions. More than 40 public, economic and petroleum figures will lecture during the event.
Today this seminar is held annually for two weeks at St. Anthony's College at Oxford. One session was cancelled, in September 1990, during Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. During this period, the seminar has been ably run by Robert Mabro, a professor at Oxford, and his colleague Alfred Nabb. Since 2005, the Kuwait Petroleum Institution's former head, Nader Sultan, has taken on their responsibilities, while Mabro continues to supervise the event. Helping them in the administration of the series is Bassam Fattouh, a colleague from the Oxford Energy Studies Institute. This year's edition comprises participants from 27 different nationalities, led by delegates from Japan and Saudi Arabia. The lectures cover various aspects of today's petroleum industry. This year's subjects, for example, cover contemporary developments in the international economy; the viewpoints of OPEC and the International Energy Agency about energy policies and challenges; the international petroleum reserve; the growth of the international natural gas industry; the impact of politics and general conditions on the energy industry in the US, Russia and China; the impact of international political conditions on the petroleum industry; political developments in the Middle East and in Iraq in particular; the growth of the gas industry in Qatar and the challenges that the petroleum industry faces in Iran and Venezuela; the developments in the international refining and petrochemicals industries; the relations of national and international oil companies; environmental policies and energy alternatives; developments in the oil industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
However, there have been something special things in this year's edition of the seminar (one of the most important such gatherings in the world), namely the friendly interaction and relations that have grown among delegates themselves, the high standard of lectures and questions that the participants put to the lecturers, and the frankness and profound nature of the answers to these questions. One of this year's lectures is the head of Saudi Aramco, Abdullah Joumaa, the secretary general of OPEC, Abdullah al-Badri; the Algerian diplomat Lakhdar al-Ibrahimi; the academic and former Lebanese minister Ghassan Salameh; the former secretary general of OAPEC, Adnan Shihab Al Din; the oil writer Daniel Bergen; the former Algerian minister of petroleum, Noureddine Ait Hussein; the head of Germany's Ruhrgaz, Burkhard Bergman; the head of the French Petroleum Institute, Olivier Aubert; the head of Shell's Gas and Energy Department, Linda Cook; the head of Schlumberger, Andrew Gould; the executive director of the International Energy Agency, ambassador Ramsay Clark; the head of Qatar Petroleum International, Nasser Jidi; as well as Robert Mabro and Nader Sultan.
To support the club and the seminar, there were discussions about establishing a scientific institute with a specialized library and publications program, to ensure the continuity of these two efforts and boost them thanks to suitable scientific research, while retaining authentic ideals and general foundations, such as adopting scientific foundations and dialogue, creating an objective channel of communication between exporters and consumers. In fact, the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies was actually established in the historic university setting of Oxford, giving the studies and research the required scientific background. Mabro, a fellow at St. Anthony's in Middle East economic studies, took part in the founding in 1982 and ran the institute for two decades until his recent retirement. Mabro was born and raised in Alexandria; he studied there as well. His family was originally from Tripoli, Lebanon. Also helping in the establishment of the institute was OAPEC, and its then-secretary general, Ali Jida, and OPEC, and its former secretary general, Ali Attiga. The institute's board of directors comprises representatives of St. Anthony's, St. Catherine's and Newfield Colleges at Oxford University; OPEC; OAPEC; Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources; the Kuwait Research Institute; the State of Kuwait; the Swedish Energy Administration; the French Petroleum Institute; the Arab Institution for Petroleum Investments; the Japanese Energy Research Institute; the Arab Banking Group; and the Mexican Petroleum Institute. The Oxford Energy Studies Institute is registered as a non-profit UK firm and has published dozens of fine studies and books on various aspects of energy; its board of directors is headed by Adrian Lajous, the former head of Mexico's Pemex.
Dr. Walid Khadduri is an expert in energy affairs.
|
