OPEC Headquarter
By Chika Amanze-Nwachuku
An estimated investment of $38 trillion would be needed to meet global energy projects through 2035, the international Energy Agency (IEA), adviser to 28 industrialised nations has said.
The figure, which represented a 15 percent rise on the agency’s last year’s forecast of $33 trillion was released at a just-concluded meeting hosted by the IEA to discuss investment needs with emerging economies.
According to the IEA $10 trillion would be needed for investments in oil, $16.9trillion for power, $9.5 trillion for natural gas, $1.1 trillion on coal while about $300 billion would be invested on bio-fuels.
The IEA also warned that unrests in energy producing countries pose may adversely affect oil supplies.
“If the investment doesn’t come through in the Middle East and Northern Africa region, this will have major implications on international oil prices,” the IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said at the event.
He said 90 percent of crude production growth in the next 10 years would come from countries in the Middle East and North America.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) last week cut its estimate for world oil demand for this year saying it expects no growth in oil demand for next year due to uncertainty in the global economy.
In its latest Oil Market Report (OMR), the 12 member group, which controls a third of world’s oil, said uncertainty in the world economy was taking toll on oil demand, especially in the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) region.
The group said OECD growth expectations for 2011 currently stood at 1.6percent, significantly lower than the initial forecast of 2.0 percent.
OPEC said the world oil demand would be about 180,000 barrels per day less than its forecast for 2011.
For 2012 OPEC said estimated world oil demand growth would fall by 1.2 million barrels per day to just over 88 million while estimated demand for its own oil remains 29.9 million barrels a day, just 100,000 barrels a day higher than last year.
Oil demand in developed nations had been flat or declining but demand from the developing economies of Asia had been pushing world oil consumption higher, according to the report.