International Energy Agency

From Free net encyclopedia

The International Energy Agency (IEA, or AIE in Romance languages) is a Paris-based intergovernmental organisation founded by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the oil crisis. The IEA is dedicated to preventing disruptions in the supply of oil, as well as acting as an information source on statistics about the international oil market and other energy sectors. They have a secondary role in promoting and developing alternate energy sources, rational energy policies, and multinational energy technology co-operation. The one sector it does not study in detail, except as a contribution to the overall energy balance and economy, is nuclear fission which is covered by the International Atomic Energy Agency. IEA hold a combined stockpile of 4 billion barrels, 1.4 billion of which governments control for emergency use. Much of the oil is held in the form of petrol products which need no further processing.