United States Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil Issue Joint Statement on Energy Supply and Hydrogen Energy

The United States Government and the International Energy Agency (IEA) are in agreement on key issues concerning short-term global energy supply and the promise of hydrogen as an energy. Our wide-ranging discussion covered the state of the world oil market, our ongoing preparedness to address any possible severe supply disruption, and the long-term potential for hydrogen as an energy carrier, declared the United States Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil, after meeting on Thursday in Brussels.

The world oil market today is stretched nearly to capacity, due in large part to the Venezuelan supply disruption and cold weather. The U.S. Government and IEA appreciate the actions of producer nations, which have already increased production to mitigate the effects of the Venezuelan disruption.

In light of tight markets, we also appreciate producers' willingness to increase production if necessary to address any further supply disruption. The United States government and IEA emphasized the importance of continued, close consultations and monitoring of events and reaffirmed their commitment to make additional volumes of oil available to the market to reinforce producers' efforts if needed.

The U.S. government and the IEA agreed that Secretary Abraham will brief delegates at the April 28-29 Ministerial meeting of the IEA on the role of hydrogen as an energy carrier and its potential to provide enormous energy security and environmental benefits.