Joint Venture Research between
The Baker Institute Energy Forum
and
The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan

The Baker Institute Energy Forum has an international research collaboration with the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ) to bring together scholars from the U.S., Asia, Japan, Russia and the Middle East to conduct joint research on important public policy topics related to the security of world energy markets. The program involves a combination of international research seminars, high-level policy conferences and commissioned working papers on a central theme of importance to international energy policy. It is hoped that the program, by bringing together senior policy makers and scholars from a variety of important countries from around the world, will promote enhanced discussion and cooperation on international energy policy.

The Current Study

The Energy Forum and the IEEJ are currently embarked on a major study on The Global Energy Market: Comprehensive Strategies to Meet Geopolitical and Financial Risks—The G8, Energy Security, and Global Climate Issues. The one-year study will be finalized in time for the G8 meeting scheduled to take place in Japan during July 2008. The study is part of the Baker Institute's longstanding research collaboration with key Japanese think tanks and university scholars. In September 2006, a Baker Institute delegation including Ambassador Edward Djerejian, Founding Director of the Baker Institute, Amy Myers Jaffe, Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies, and Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University Professor of Economics, traveled to Tokyo for the study's inaugural meeting.

The research will examine a variety of scenarios for the future of global energy markets, focusing on factors that could trigger a regional or worldwide crisis. The study seeks to assess the geopolitical risks currently facing international energy markets and the global financial system. It also will investigate the consequences that such risks could pose to energy security, pricing and supply as well as to the transparent and smooth operation of the global market for oil trade and investment.

Finally, researchers will develop a concrete menu of policy recommendations to strengthen the stability of global energy and financial markets in order to withstand possible shocks and geopolitical threats, including strategies related to enhancing diversification, alternative energy technologies, multilateral energy trade accords, emergency market procedures, and economic reform and privatization in the Middle East and Russia. By analyzing these threats in depth, the study aims to develop a series of policy frameworks that can be used to fortify the current market system and ensure that it can respond flexibly to the array of threats that might be encountered in the coming years.

The primary items to be researched in this study are the following three:

(1) Visions to address global warming issues including that of a post-Kyoto multilateral framework;
(2) Main policy options as solutions to global warming and energy security issues;
(3) Risks and threats to the stability of international energy markets and measures to cope with them.

Click Here to read more about the Global Energy Market Study and to access the Working Papers.

About the IEEJ

The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ) was established in June 1966 and specializes in research activities in the area of energy from the viewpoint of Japan's national economy in a bid to contribute to sound development of Japanese energy supply and consumption industries and to the improvement of domestic welfare by objectively analyzing energy problems and providing basic data, information and the reports necessary for policy formulation. With the diversification of social needs during the three and a half decades of its operation, IEEJ has expanded its scope of research activities to include such topics as environmental problems and international cooperation closely related to energy. The Energy Data and Modeling Center (EDMC), which merged with the IEEJ in July 1999, was established in October 1984 as an IEEJ-affiliated organization to carry out such tasks as the development of energy data bases, the building of various energy models and the econometric analyses of energy.

Previous Research: JPEC

In past years, the Energy Forum collaborated with the Japan Petroleum Energy Center (JPEC) to publish five joint studies on energy policy and energy science and technology policy. The studies covered Japanese energy policy; micro-nuclear technology; emerging technologies in the natural gas sector; and Persian Gulf politics and oil, post-September 11, and Energy In Russia. There was further collaboration on a major study on the "Role of National Oil Companies" which was finalized in 2007. JPEC was established in May 1986 by the petroleum subcommittee in the Petroleum Council, which is an advisory committee to the Minister of International Trade and Industry. JPEC's mission is to promote structural renovation that will effectively enhance technological development in the petroleum industry and to cope with the need for the rationalization of the refining system. JPEC's international collaborations cover joint research and exchange of researchers and information with oil producing countries and international institutions and support for infrastructure improvement and solving environmental problems of the petroleum industries in oil producing countries.