I. ARAB RELATIONS

1- Specialized Conferences and Seminars

OAPEC participates in various meetings sponsored by the League of Arab States, and regional conferences, meetings, and seminars on a wide range of oil industry-related topics.  For its part the General Secretariat organizes annually several specialized seminars on the various issues of the oil and gas industry, where it brings together experts from member countries and from non-Arab countries.  The General Secretariat also organizes every two years a seminar aimed at providing middle management with an overview of the fundamentals of the oil and gas industry.

2- Arab Energy Conference (AEC) 

The Council of Ministers of the Organization stressed the need for continued cooperation with non-member Arab Countries, particularly within the framework of the Arab Energy Conference (AEC). 

The idea of instituting and Arab Energy Conference began with a decision adopted by the Ministerial Council in May 1977.  Consultations with the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development led to an agreement that the two organizations jointly sponsor the Conference, thereby ensuring the representation of all Arab countries and highlighting the nexus between energy and development.

The objectives of the AEC are the following:    

-                 To establish an Arab institutional framework for oil and energy issues in order to develop a pan-Arab perspective.

-                 To coordinate relations among Arab institutions concerned with energy and development..

-                 To study present and future Arab energy requirements and the means of satisfying them.

-                 To identify and assess existing Arab resources, and the efforts exerted to develop energy sources, as well as the coordination and developments of such efforts. 

-                 To identify and evaluate the impact of international energy policies on the Arab Countries. 

To date seven meetings the Conference have been convened as follows:

-                 The First AEC meeting was held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in March 1979, under the theme “The Arabs and Energy Issues”.  After the meeting, contacts were carried out between the League of Arab States and OAPEC to incorporate the activities of the Arab Petroleum Conference, which had been sponsored by the Arab League since 1959, into those of the AEC.  The Arab League thus became a sponsor of AEC.  The Arab Industrial Development Organization was also included as a sponsor of AEC, due to its interest in the petrochemical and electricity industries.

-                 The Second AEC meeting was held in Doha, Qatar, in March 1982, under the sponsorship of the four aforementioned organizations.  The theme of the meeting was “Energy for Development and Arab Economic Integration”.  Pursuant to the recommendation of the Conference, the Arab Organization for Mineral Resources became the fifth sponsor of the conference.

-                 The Third AEC was held in Algiers, Algeria, in May 1985, under the theme “Energy and Arab Cooperation”, which was adopted as the theme for subsequent meetings.

-                 The Fourth AEC meeting was held in Baghdad, Iraq, in March 1988 under the sponsorship of the five aforementioned organizations. 

-                 The Fifth AEC meeting was held in Cairo, Egypt, in May 1994.  This latter AEC was sponsored by four organizations due to the merging of the Arab Organization for Mineral Resources and the Arab Industrial Development Organization into the Arab Industrial Development and Mining Organization.

-                 The Sixth AEC meeting was convened in Damascus, Syria in May 1998 under the sponsorship of the four organizations. 

-                 The Seventh AEC meeting will be held in Cairo , Egypt in May, 2002, under the sponsorship of the organization.

It was agreed at that Conference that the Eighth AEC meeting will be held in Amman, Jordan in May 2006.

3- Joint Arab Economic Report 

OAPEC participates in the preparation of “The joint Arab Economic Report”, with the General Secretariat of the Arab League,  Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, and the Arab Monetary Fund.  The latter undertakes the publication of the Report.

II. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

OAPEC endeavors to strengthen its contacts and ties with institutions outside the Arab world so as to present an Arab perspective on energy and development problems.  It explores possibilities of cooperation among its members, and net oil importing industrialized and developing countries. The Organization also fosters contacts that facilitate access to new scientific and technological developments in the field of energy.

OAPEC maintains its international contacts through the following channels:  Specialized scientific seminars organized in conjunction with similar institutions, particularly those concerned with regional and international energy affairs, as well as universities. These activities include:

a.                Participation in the international conferences that tackle energy and development issues such as the World Energy Congress, the World petroleum Conference and the World Conference.

b.                Cooperation  with several international institutions operating in the field of energy, including the Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP), Institute of Applied Geoscience of the Netherlands (TNO),the Energy Directorate of European Commission, and World Energy Council (WEC).

c.                 The Organization’s relation past and present with universities include:

-       Conducting a Seminar on the policies affecting resources and development, jointly with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, during the 1977-78 academic year. 

-       Sponsored the annual Oxford Energy Seminar in conjunction with OPEC and st. Catherine’s College of Oxford University. The seminar provides a forum for the discussion of energy issues with the goal of fostering closer ties between the participants representing oil exporting and those representing oil importing countries. Participants from OAPEC have regularly attended the seminar starting with the first in September 1979.

-       OAPEC is a founding member of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), established in December 1982 and affiliated with Oxford University. The Institute focus is on the study of economic, social, and political aspects of energy issues,, with particular emphasis on the needs of developing countries including oil exporters. The Institute was interested with the Organization of the annual Oxford Energy Seminar starting with the 5^th in 1983.