The International Energy Agency is prepared to respond to any significant disruption in oil supply but is not at the moment actively considering any action as it does not currently see a specific supply disruption, IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven said Monday.
"We constantly monitor developments on the oil market, and the current situation [with] these heightened tensions in the Middle East Gulf is no exception," she told Platts in an interview in the UAE capital, where she is attending the World Future Energy Summit.
"We remain prepared to respond to any significant oil supply disruption.
But as no specific disruption is underway, we are not actively considering any action at the present time," van der Hoeven said.
The Reuters news agency reported on January 6 that senior IEA executives had discussed a day earlier a plan to release a record volume of up to 14 million b/d from strategic stockpiles in the US, Europe, Japan and other importing countries to replace most of the oil that would be lost if Iran were to block the Strait of Hormuz.
In response to the report, the IEA on January 7 released a statement saying it was not currently working on contingency plans to release oil from emergency stockpiles.
Asked whether she was concerned about the potential impact on supply should the EU impose an embargo on Iranian oil exports, van der Hoeven said sanctions were a matter for governments and all the oil consumer watchdog could do was monitor developments.
"Any sanctions on another country are done by the governments of this country or by the EU and it is up to them to decide on that," she said, adding that there was also an argument to be made that Iran "is heavily dependent on its revenues from oil exports."
She added: "At the moment, we hear from different sides...at this time, the best thing that we can do is to see to it that we know what's going on and to keep on monitoring the whole thing."
Van der Hoeven said she welcomed remarks at the weekend by Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Naimi that the kingdom's spare production capacity would be available to supply markets if necessary.
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, has more than 2 million b/d of spare capacity that it could bring on within 90 days in the event of an emergency. The kingdom holds the largest proportion of the world's available spare oil output capacity.
Van der Hoeven said the IEA was expected to release figures for spare production capacity in its forthcoming monthly Oil Market Report covering the fourth quarter of 2011 but she admitted that commercial stocks had fallen since mid-2010 while oil demand was rising, particularly in the developing economies.
"Spare capacity is still there. I also heard minister [Ali] Al Naimi from Saudi said two days ago that Saudi Arabia will always meet demand. I know they have invested in spare capacity. But its also true that stocks have tightened over the last 18 months," she said.
As for whether current spare capacity was enough to make up for any significant disruption or whether the IEA was concerned about the potential erosion of capacity should other producers have to lift output, van der Hoeven said it would depend on how much volume is lost and for how long.
"It depends on what the gap will be. It depends on how long the gap will be there. There is a certain amount of spare capacity," she said.
The last OPEC meeting in December, where the 12 members formalized output at 30 million b/d but did not set individual quotas, was reassuring, van der Hoeven said. It signalled that "there's nothing to be worried about so let's see what happens and what the individual countries are going to do."
