Fatih Birol: Diversification - golden rule of energy security

For decades, Russia remained Europe's main energy supplier, primarily natural gas. Today, this era is coming to an end, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said following the preliminary agreement between the European Council and Parliament on phasing out Russian energy supplies, Report informs.

"Dear colleagues, if you look at the past, why Europe chose Russia, it's very interesting. In the 1970s, it was a diversification from Middle East oil. It was a way to diversify there. But it went a bit, I would say, too far from this diversification, there was a growing dependency on Russian gas. I remember 2004, 20 years ago, I was in Berlin. I told this to the Madam President, Israel. I said that Europe's dependency on Russian gas may be problematic in the future. At that time, it was 30% and it was not hurt very strongly in Europe. And 2019, about half of the European gas came from Russia, even worse. But Russia reminded us when they invaded Crimea, 2014 that Russia may not be the most reliable energy partner. And we know the rest. In 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the cutting of Russian gas, and the major energy crisis in Europe. Now, when the crisis happened, I presented Madam President a 10-point plan of IEA. How to go through these difficult days without having. Without having the lights off. With the lights on and the economy strong. And under the strong leadership of Madam President. We have seen that. That we hit the gas. We were. We were also fortunate to have the US LNG at that time and the Norwegian growing gas production again in the last three years. Excessing of the renewables, as we have seen renewables in the last three years, Madam President increased 40% in three years, which is unbelievable.

A big growth again, as we have suggested. And again we have suggested that the nuclear should give it a second thought. And the countries that wanted to phase out nuclear stop their policies and continue with nuclear. And today, I think a historic day, thanks to the strong leadership of Madam President. And also, I can thank and congratulate my friend, Mr. Commissioner Dan Jorgensen. His great efforts until this morning continue. I hope then you will have some time to enjoy this today and mark this occasion. Dear colleagues, this comes at a time of course, very important, as Madam President mentioned. It is also important in the context of defending Ukraine and defending European integrity and sovereignty. But it comes at a time that, as I said two years ago, lots of LNG is coming to the market now. From the US, Canada, Australia, and Qatar is it gives us Europe a room of maneuver. I would like to finish my words. We all at the IEA, we all want to get a lesson, learn a lesson from this experience in the last 50 years. The lesson we learn is not to have too much concentration of energy from one single country. This can be gas, this can be this or that, because in the energy world, over-reliance can quickly turn into major geopolitical vulnerabilities. So therefore, I think we I hope we all learn our lesson. My number one golden rule for energy security is diversification," he added.

In conclusion, he expressed hope that the experience of successfully reducing dependence on Russian gas could be repeated in the future with regard to oil and nuclear fuel supplies.