Compulsory stockpiling - the international environment
The International Energy Agency
Like Switzerland, all industrialised nations maintain compulsory petroleum stockpiles. In the context of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), overall control for this is carried out by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, established in 1974 as a reaction to the first oil crisis and which has 28 Member States. Switzerland is a founder member of the IEA. The IEA’s key regulations International Energy Programme oblige the Member States, insofar as they are not net exporters, to maintain compulsory stockpiles to the level of 90 days net imports and to take joint action in the case of supply bottlenecks.
The International Energy Agency’s main activities are political work, statistics and market analyses, as well as contact with non-members.
ACOMES
ACOMES stands for Annual Co-ordinating Meeting of Entity Stockholders. It is an informal meeting of compulsory stockpiling organisations from Europe, Asia and the USA for discussing joint practical aspects of compulsory stockpiling. This includes questions of a technical, organisational and financial nature.
The participating organisations and the compulsory stockpiling systems in the respective countries are organised in very different ways – depending on their underlying legislation. The homepages of the participating organisations provide more information on this.