Let's Talk Energy

ASEAN Economic Community 2015: Integration of Energy Infrastructure September 16, 2011

ASEAN is one of the fastest growing economic regions in the world and has a fast rising energy demand driven by economic and demographic growth. ASEAN has been demonstrating a sharp rebound from the global crisis. In 2010 the region’s real GDP grew above the world average with some countries even recording two-digit economic growth. Total GDP of the region in 2010 was US$1,850 (at current prices) having grown by 7.4 percent from the previous year. The population of ASEAN reached 598.5 million in 2010, 1.3 percent more than the previous year.

The region’s economic and population growth had resulted in a consequential increase in final energy consumption. With the assumed GDP growth rate of 5.2 percent per annum from 2007 to 2030, it was estimated the final energy consumption increase to 427 MTOE (million tons of oil equivalent) in 2010 and will grow at an average annual rate of 4.4 percent to 1,018 MTOE in 2030 (ACE and IEEJ; the 3^rd ASEAN Energy Outlook: BAU Scenario). This growth is very much higher than the world’s average growth rate of 1.4 percent per year in primary energy demand over 2008-2035 (IEA World Energy Outlook 2010).

In view of the high economic growth and need of energy supply, the challenge to ensure a secure supply of energy is an overriding concern for ASEAN. Energy is crucial to the transformation of ASEAN into a stable, secure, prosperous, rules-based, competitive, resilient and integrated economic community by 2015, named ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015, that was formulated as AEC Blueprint, declared by ASEAN Senior Officer on Energy (SOE) Leaders on the occasion of the 40^th Anniversary of ASEAN and the 13^th ASEAN Summit in Singapore in 2007. (more…)