IEA: The World Needs Upstream Oil and Gas Investment
March 11, 2025
ByCharles Kennedy– Mar 11, 2025, 9:30 AM CDT
The world needs upstream investments in existing oil and gas fields to support global energy security, Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston.
The IEA famously said in 2021 that no investments in new oil and gas fields are needed if the world has a chance to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
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The Paris-based agency has repeatedly said since 2021 that the world not need any new long lead-time conventional oil and gas projects or coal mines approved after 2023 as the surge in clean energy deployment could lead to peak fossil fuel demand this decade.
This decade, the IEA, created in response to the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s, has veered toward advocating for and promoting clean energy investments and transition and has often expressed opinions that net zero wouldn’t be achieved with investments in new oil and gas production.
These opinions, alongside forecasts that peak oil demand will happen this decade, have drawn harsh criticism from OPEC, which has repeatedly slammed the IEA for “dangerous” forecasts that would hurt consumers and “only lead to energy volatility on a potentially unprecedented scale.”
At CERAWeek, the IEA’s Birol said “I want to make it clear … there would be a need for investment, especially to address the decline in the existing fields.”
“There is a need for oil and gas upstream investments, full stop,” Birol added.
Of the $400 billion annual investment in oil and gas, $360 billion goes into offsetting the decline in existing fields, according to the IEA official.
Earlier this year, Neil Atkinson, the former chief of the IEA’s oil industry and markets department, said that the IEA is producing potentially “dangerously wrong” reports due to its marked pro-transition bias.
Atkinson authored a report in partnership with Mark P. Mills, the head of the think tank the National Center for Energy Analytics, calling on the IEA to focus on its original purpose, which was monitoring of oil market developments and industry outlook.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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