Thursday, April 1, 2010

Oil ministers approve enhancing IEF framework for mitigating energy market volatility12TH IEF ministerial meet adopts cancun declaration
  
The Oil Ministers from over 60 countries representing both oil producers and consumers adopted a declaration at the 12th International Energy Forum (IEF) Ministerial Meet today at Cancun, Mexico (India time) which aims at proposing means to mitigate energy market volatility. Expressing satisfaction about the outcome, Shri Murli Deora, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas who is leading Indian delegation said that the declaration endorses India´s position that high is not in the interest of either oil producer countries or the oil importing nations. He added that India has been for long pursuing a dialogue between them. Shri Deora had earlier put forward India´s concerns at meets at Jeddah, Vienna and London saying that high volatility affects new investments in exploration and production projects besides being a drain on the resources of the importing nations.

The Ministerial declaration was issued on the final day of the two-day deliberations of oil producer and consumer nations. It calls for an enhanced dialogue between global producer-consumer countries. The declaration approved an enhanced IEF framework to sustain and reinforce the commitment of producer and consumer states to the informal dialogue. It was decided to establish a new High Level Steering Group of participating countries with a mandate to draft the IEF Charter.

With regards to volatility in the energy markets, the declaration said, ´´ energy markets should be as transparent as possible to enable their efficient and effective operation and timely and improved market related data should facilitate better understanding of market price behaviour and appropriate regulatory responses.´´ The neutral status of IEF has also been emphasised with an enhanced role in providing improved and expanded market data and compiling relevant analytical reports with respect to both the physical and paper oil market. Further ,it proposes greater cooperation between the IEF, the International Energy Agency and OPEC sharing analysis of market trends and outlook. It also recongnised that regulations have important effects on market functioning and participants´ behaviour.

Various milestone has been proposed as part of Implementation Plan for drafting and approving the IEF Charter before March 2011 and implementing the new organisational setting by March 2011 and beyond.

In addition, the Indian delegation met more delegations from other countries on the sidelines of the meet to explore greater opportunities for cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector. These include the meetings with delegations of Qatar, Iran, Angola, Russia among others.

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