Mexico Joins The IEA

Mexico has become the 30th member of the International Energy Agency, the latter announced, welcoming its first Latin American member as part of an open-doors policy aimed at strengthening the ties between the IEA and emerging economies.

The policy itself is part of a strategy to modernize the authority through closer engagement with the emerging economies as well as key energy industry players in regions such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa “towards a secure, sustainable and affordable energy future.”

The strategy also aims to expand the reach of the IEA since the share of its members’ production in global energy supply had shrunk to 40 percent in 2015. Now, after the addition of Mexico, this share has gone up to 70 percent.

The agency praised the world’s 12th largest producer of crude oil for the speed with which it covered the requirements for joining. These include crude oil and/or products reserves equal to 90 days of net imports as of the previous year that could be used quickly in case of a global supply disruption, and a program seeking to restrain demand for oil by up to 10 percent.

The IEA was set up in 1974 by Germany, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the United States.

Mexico, however, though a large oil producer, has been having issues with expanding or even maintaining production. Last year, the average daily stood at 1.948 million bpd, down from 2.154 million bpd a year earlier and from 2.548 million bpd in 2012.

The country has been struggling with underinvestment in the energy sector due to Pemex’s monopoly position, but since 2013, when the Enrique Pena-Nieto government passed a far-reaching energy reform, there has been consistent efforts to turn things around by inviting international oil and gas companies to take part in the development of Mexico’s substantial oil reserves.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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