Energy Security Insight Março —2016
Opinião: Energy Security in Europe Energia solar ganha competitividade Nova produção de petróleo offshore adiada
com o apoio de
Knowledge Partner
Energy Security in Europe
W
hat is the state of European energy security today? A straightforward question, but the answer is all but straightforward. Energy security means different things to different people.
Here in Portugal one probably worries about the stability of Angola and Brazil, or about the lack of an energy connection between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe. In Eastern Europe, by contrast, one worries first and foremost about Russia: about its monopoly as a gas supplier, which allows it to charge almost any price; or as a geopolitical Michael Ruhle actor who uses gas as a “political weapon” to get reticent countries back Head, Energy Security in line. And all across Europe we worry about the low oil price and what Section, NATO it could mean for the internal stability of energy producing countries in Emerging Security Europe’s neighbourhood, be it Northern Africa or the Middle East. Challenges Division. The author expresses solely his personal views.
Grupo de Estudos Segurança Energética
Parceria com
1ª Conferência realizada em 25 de fevereiro de 2016
Clearly, when it comes to energy, geography is still destiny. But it is not only geography that makes an objective evaluation of the state of Europe’s energy security so difficult. There is also the ambivalent character of energy itself. The Israeli humourist Ephraim Kishon once remarked that the two greatest catastrophes of mankind were marriage and taxes: both institutions were forcing one to cheat! He could have easily added energy as the third catastrophe. After all, the amount of “cheating” that one finds in this field is certainly no less than in marriage or taxes. There is hardly another subject where open and hidden economic interests are so deeply intertwined with geopolitical agendas and national security concerns. There is hardly another subject where national governments and the private sector are often entangled in mysterious ways; and there is hardly another subject where political psychology can become as important as the laws of the market. In short, when it comes to energy – and, by extension, energy security – one finds at work a strange mixture of economics, politics, ideology, and voodoo – a mix that does not lend itself easily to sober analysis. With these caveats in mind, let us try to capture the major factors that determine the state of Europe’s energy security. The first factor is technology. Over the past years, the energy world has been revolutionised by several major technological developments: “fracking”, which gives us access to oil and gas reserves captured in rock formations; deep offshore drilling, which allows us to access previously untapped reserves under the ocean floor; the liquefaction of gas,
which makes gas a more flexible commodity, very much like oil; the increasing competitiveness of renewables, which makes them occupy an ever growing part of the energy mix; and, finally, the growing energy efficiency of modern industries, which is now enabling economic growth without a parallel increase in energy consumption. These developments have already started to increase Europe’s energy security. Fracking has turned the United States from a major consumer of gas to a major gas producer. The gas that the US no longer needs to import is now available for other consumers – with a positive impact on the price. Several LNG ports are currently being built along the Baltic coast – a development that brings home to Russia that pipelines are no longer equivalent with power, and that Moscow has to adjust to a much more competitive market. And this year, the first US LNG tankers will be heading for Europe. Even on issues such as energy, the Atlantic once again emerges as an ocean that doesn’t divide, but unites us. The second factor is politics. Here, too, the developments are largely positive. The European Union has established itself as an important energy player. Through interconnectors and reverse flow pipelines gas is now being distributed in much more flexible ways than before. For example, Ukraine today receives more gas from the West than it does from Russia. The Baltic States, which were often referred to as an “energy island”, in addition to developing the LNG option, are being connected to the wider European electricity network. The EU has challenged Gazprom’s dominant status in the European energy market and forced it to play by the rules. And the US has played a major role in making new producers, such as Azerbaijan, available for European markets. All this is good news, as it will contribute to a more flexible and competitive energy market. Europe clearly stands to gain from these developments, even if none of them will change the continent’s current dependencies in the short term. But if Europe can increasingly import energy from different places, via different routes, and if it moves toward an EU internal energy market, the continent will gradually escape its energy predicament. However, even such a bright energy scenario will require a lot of hard work to sustain. Five challenges stand out: First, threats to Critical Energy Infrastructure. Over the past years, terrorists and insurgents conducted on average about 500 attacks each year against energy-related targets. This included the bombing of gas and oil pipelines; attacks on fuel trucks; kidnapping or killing personnel of energy companies, and disrupting of electrical power systems. Most of these attacks are clustered in a few specific regions, such as West Africa. However, attacks on en-
ergy infrastructure can reverberate far beyond their point of origin. Energy markets are volatile, and even a single attack can lead to global price spikes. Terrorism and piracy can drive up insurance premiums. Let us be clear: The damage caused by such attacks remains limited and can be repaired quickly. Today, the really worrying means of aggression and disruption are non-kinetic: cyberattacks, hybrid warfare, and disinformation campaigns have moved the threats to energy infrastructure to a new level. Today, about half of all known cyberattacks are targeted at the energy sector.
Grupo de Estudos Segurança Energética
Parceria com
1ª Conferência realizada em 25 de fevereiro de 2016
About 80% of the energy infrastructures are owned by the private sector. And, by the same token, it is in the private sector where most of the cyber defence expertise lies. Hence the need for governments to build new public-private partnerships. However, this is easier said than done. A discussion on cyber defence touches on state as well as business secrets. Companies may share a common interest to defend against cyberattacks, but they still remain competitors. Building the “communities of trust” in which companies, let alone governments, would also frankly address their vulnerabilities, may well be among the greatest challenges in the cyber domain.Allow me at this point to make a brief excursion into a very unique case of attacks against energy infrastructure: theft. By illegally annexing Crimea, Russia took away from Ukraine not only a piece of land and its population; Moscow also expropriated all Ukrainian energy assets in and around the peninsula – energy infrastructure worth billions of dollars. This has diminished the opportunities for Ukraine to become energy independent. And we have to think harder about the use of energy in “hybrid conflicts”. The second major challenge is maritime security. Around half of the world’s total oil production is transported by oil tankers on fixed maritime routes, many of which have to pass critical choke points. With LNG becoming more popular, the number of energy shipments will increase further. Port facilities are more complex and congested than ever before. And many parts of critical energy infrastructure today are heavily reliant on cyber systems, which make them vulnerable to cyberattacks. A typical LNG tanker features several hundred IT controlled elements, all of which are vulnerable to cyber risks. Piracy remains a problem as well. Through Western naval patrols, piracy off the coast of Somalia has practically disappeared, but no one knows what happens if NATO and the EU end their maritime mission there. And there is also the geopolitical dimension: a regional crisis or a territorial dispute can lead to maritime blockades, the mining of certain waterways, and all kinds of other conflicts that will impede energy shipping. In short, energy security and maritime security remain closely linked. The fourth challenge is instability in energy producing countries. This instability can have two very different sources. One is the low oil price.
Over the past two years the oil price has fallen from an average $99 per barrel in 2014 to $53 in 2015, and to $28 in early 2016. This steep drop was the result of several factors: the flat oil consumption in countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; the slower-than-usual increase in China’s oil demand due to its cooling economy; the massive increase in the United States’ unconventional oil and gas production, which reduced US imports and made more oil available on the global market; Saudi Arabia’s decision to retain its record high production levels in order to defend its market share; and the lack of consensus within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) about quotas. Saudi Arabia’s decision to retain its output levels may also have been motivated by additional considerations: to drive US unconventional oil and gas production out of business and to make Iran’s post-sanctions re-entry into the market more difficult. The security dimensions of such a situation are obvious: for many oil-producing countries, a drop in the oil price below a certain level threatens to unravel the “social contract” between the regimes and their populations. For states that used to “buy off” their populations through generous subsidies, a continuing global oil glut could translate into political unrest. Worse, one cannot discount the risk that the leadership of some of these countries will seek to divert attention by engaging in foreign policy adventurism. Russia is an obvious candidate for such behaviour, but it is far from being the only one. Another cause of instability in energy-producing countries is terrorism. With the emergence of ISIL/Daesh we are witnessing a new type of terrorism. In line with its own self-image as being an “Islamic State”, ISIL doesn’t seek to destroy energy installations but to use them to finance their own activities. In its best days, before the Coalition started to go after them, ISIL made hundreds of millions of Dollars per year, turning it into the world’s most wealthy terrorist group. ISIL’s oil revenues have gone down by now, but if they were to advance into Libya, another domino could fall – and Europe’s energy security would be affected. The fight against ISIL proves that even traditional counter-terrorism can make an important contribution to energy security. The final challenge is energy solidarity. In Europe, energy policies are still predominantly national. Strategic decisions regarding certain aspects of national energy policy are being made unilaterally, sometimes even without fully consulting even those neighbouring countries which might be affected by such decisions. Cultural differences, too, can be a factor, for example in nations’ different attitudes vis-a-vis fracking. In some countries one can also observe protectionist tendencies, for example when coal is being kept in the energy mix in order to save jobs. One can also observe how political tensions between states hamper the exploitation of newly discovered energy resources – witness the quarrel over the gas findings in the Eastern Mediterranean. As so often, Russia remains the proverbial elephant in the room. Diverging views on Russia remain among the main reasons why progress towards an internal gas market is slow. Simply put, if Russia is seen as a benign supplier, diversifying
away from Russia appears both expensive and unnecessary. By contrast, if you are sceptical about Russia, you will invest in alternatives, even if they are more expensive. These tensions are significant – all the more so as they will affect the future gas supply of, for example, Southeast Europe. As long as these tensions persist, true energy solidarity will be impossible to achieve. It is therefore essential that the attempts to build a true Energy Union be sustained, even if many nations still disagree on that Union’s final shape.
Grupo de Estudos Segurança Energética
Parceria com
1ª Conferência realizada em 25 de fevereiro de 2016
In closing, let me offer a few words on NATO. Can the Atlantic Alliance make a sensible contribution to advancing Europe’s energy security? The honest answer: not that much. After all, NATO is a military alliance, and the last thing that we want is to signal to the world that we regard energy security as a military issue. As a former Secretary General once put it, energy security is not a call to arms. We want this subject to remain an economic one. NATO is neither in the pipeline business nor does it issue diversification directives. This is best left to other actors. Still, NATO is much more than a passive bystander. The Alliance brings together the United States, Canada and 26 European states, both EU and nonEU members. It features a trusted political consultation process. It has a long tradition of sharing intelligence, including on energy developments. And it has established a unique network of partner countries, many of which are either energy producers or transit countries. This combination of characteristics has allowed us to craft an agenda that complements the much wider agenda of the EU. One part of this agenda is to hold regular consultations on the security implications of energy developments. Another is to integrate energy-related scenarios into our crisis management exercises. We are also seeking to build closer ties with energy institutions, such as the International Energy Agency, and the private sector. We support the exchange of best practices on critical energy infrastructure protection, notably with partner countries. But perhaps one of the most interesting items on our agenda is the development of tailored education and training programmes. Ideally, all of NATO’s future political and military leaders should have a thorough understanding of how energy and security interact. This will contribute to a strategic community that has more holistic understanding of security – and, hopefully, it will also contribute to more forward-looking security policies. As the “Rule of Noah” has it: “Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.”
Custo de produção energética solar fotovoltaica nos EUA desce 82% Comparação LCOE Energia EUA
A
s centrais de energia solar fotovoltaica estao a tornar-se cada vez mais uma opçao de mercado para consolidar uma segurança de abastecimento energetico de baixo carbono. Com efeito, no passado mes de fevereiro, o Secretario de Estado da Energia, Jorge Seguro Sanches, anunciou que serao licenciados 180 MW naosubsidiados a serem produzidos em centrais solares de grande escala.
Fonte: Lazard's levelized cost of energy analysis—version 9.0, 2015
A rapida diminuiçao do custo da tecnologia e o aumento da sua eficiencia sao os grandes motores da mudança de posicionamento da opçao solar no paradigma da segurança energetica. Senao vejamos. Segundo a Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a nível mundial, quando se compara as tecnologias de geraçao de eletricidade segundo o indicador LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity), ou seja, a soma total dos factores do processo produtivo da tecnologia, verifica-se que na ultima metade de 2015 o solar fotovoltaico registou uma das maiores diminuiçoes, de $129 para $122 por MW/h. Em contraste, o LCOE das centrais a carvao na Europa subiu de $82 para $105 (devido a investimento para aumento da sua eficiencia ambiental). Nos EUA a revoluçao solar e ainda mais profunda. De acordo com a analise da financeira Lazard, uma consultora com especializaçao em financiamento de energias renovaveis, o LCOE das centrais solares fotovoltaicas de grande escala nas zonas de maior radiaçao no mercado norteamericano varia entre um mínimo de $46 e um maximo de $70 por MW/h. Em contraste, os valores do gas e carvao sao, respetivamente, $61 e $66. E quando se toma a perspectiva cronologica, a queda dos custos do solar fotovoltaico de grande escala no mercado norte-americano e ainda mais pronunciada: de um maximo de $394 em 2009 para um maximo de $70 por MW/h em 2015, isto e, 82%. Mas ha uma consideravel desvantagem a ter em conta: segundo a Energy Information Administration, o factor de carga (o racio entre o valor de produçao energetica alcançado face ao valor pleno de utilizaçao da capacidade total de produçao, num período anual) da energia solar ainda e somente 25% - o de uma central a gas e de 90%. Ou seja, cerca de 75% da capacidade produtiva do sistema fotovoltaico nao e utilizada. Portanto, se e verdade que os valores dos factores de carga do LCOE podem variar segundo a localizaçao geografica, e claro que ainda ha um longo caminho que o solar fotovoltaico tem percorrer no aumento da sua eficiencia tecnologica. Contudo, o presente rendimento energetico ja e suficiente para viabilizar a preços de mercado uma central solar fotovoltaica. E esse e um enorme ganho.
Inovação Subsea junta Total e Aker
A empresa petrolífera francesa Total e a norueguesa Aker Solutions vão colaborar na investigação e inovação com o objetivo de desenvolver novas tecnologias para a produção submarina de petróleo (vulgo subsea), focadas no aumento da rentabilidade das operações. O acordo de colaboração técnica inicial de quatro anos tem como objetivo reduzir os custos e aumentar o valor em campos petrolíferos e de gás submarinos.
Fonte: Aker Solution, 2016
O plano inclui investimentos na evolução dos sistemas de processamento submarino e de compressão para aumentar a eficiência de custos da produção de gás em águas profundas, no desenvolvimento de controles submarinos elétricos e na otimização de tecnologias de medição de fluxos.
Baixo preço do petróleo faz indústria adiar produção diária de 3 milhões de barris Desde a crise do petróleo começou, os operadores adiaram $ 230 mil milhões em projetos de investimento, atrasando a produção diária de 3 milhões de barris na próxima década, revelou a Rystad Energy num recente comunicado. O montante é 38 por cento maior do que a consultora estimava em julho de 2015, sendo que o número de projetos adiados aumentou de 40 para 63. Areias betuminosas, projetos de petróleo pesado, empreendimentos de gás natural liquefeito e prospetos de águas profundas foram ose segmentos mais atingidos antes no verão passado, sendo que os projetos de produção de gás offshore e onshore foram cancelados na segunda metade do ano passado. Até agora, segundo a Rystad Energy, a indústria diferiu 14 projetos de águas profundas, cinco projectos de gás natural liquefeito, duas instalações petrolíferas baseadas em crude pesado, sete de gás offshore e 10 projectos de areias betuminosas.
Energy Security Insight Março —2016
com o apoio de
Knowledge Partner