538 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 4 / 2014 worsens. That is why, on a number of occasions, instead of directly acting, the IEA has relied in the dialogue with OPEC. By relying on the willingness and capacity of OPEC producers to supply missing oil promptly in response to a disruption, the IEA marginalises itself. • Keeping the capacity to react: An IEA response delivers supply more quickly to consumers than producers could ever do. Under an IEA release, European refiners dip into crude and product inventories that they already own but cannot usually access. In contrast, crude from producers would take weeks to arrive at refineries, before processing and distribution. By using reserves, refiners could of course dip into commercial stocks in the meantime, but this is likely to lead to yet higher prices. CERM mechanisms provide the IEA with the capacity to quickly react to oil supply disruptions that can never be replaced by actions taken by big producers. Advantages for IEA priority cooperation countries Having to coordinate with IEA future rapid reactions in order to assure the energy supply would have a “sovereignty cost” for non-member states. They would lose the capacity to free-ride on the IEAs decision in case of a major disruption in the oil supply. Nevertheless, this might also bring benefits for them in terms of energy stability, discipline in the management of their reserves and integration in a western-democratic organization. • Supply stability: It is in the interest of new big consumers, keeping relatively stable market conditions in oil and gas, since their growth very much depends from the availability of energy resources. The evidence of this is the number of exercises held between the IEA and non-member countries over the last years.24 IEA could provide them with a useful mechanism in order to inject some price stability in cases of tightness in the oil demand. • Access to information Due to the lack of serious energy disruptions that demands its intervention, the IEA has increasingly allocated its resources to the task of becoming a sort of big “energy think tank”. In the last twenty years, and in particular since the IEA acted as the G20 technical secretariat with the occasion of the Pittsburg and Toronto Summits (September 2009 and September 201025) the role of energy guru of the IEA could not be easily challenged. Its most relevant annual publication, the World Energy Outlook, is widely recognized 24 See infra page 24. 25 During the Pittsburgh Summit, the G20 requested the IEA, OECD, World Bank and OPEC to prepare a Joint Report on the scope of energy subsidies and suggestions for the implementation of their phase-out initiative. The Joint Report was presented to the G20 Toronto Summit in June 2010, during which country-specific implementation strategies and timetables were tabled.
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