Japan to help ASEAN to build crude oil reserve

The three East Asian countries will assist the association to train human resource for building and operating the facilities of the reserve, says Japan-based Nikkei Newspaper.

ASEAN members has not joined the International Energy Agency (IEA), which mandates a certain stock of crude oil for its members, but the bloc is considering to seal a deal so that each member state will maintain roughly a reserve of crude oil for 90 days of net import around 2030 on.

The region’s energy ministers will seek to adopt a timetable for creating the reserve at a meeting in Việt Nam this summer with their counterparts from the three partners.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) calculated that the Asia-Pacific’s oil demand will surge some 16% by 2015 and 59% by 2030 than it did in 2008.

Japan and the RoK are already members of the IEA, with their own oil reserves, meanwhile China is on way to build its own reserve network.

By Hải Minh