1 - Energy: A Strategic Necessity

Summary

I am very pleased indeed to welcome you all to the Singapore Energy Conference 2006. The significance of the energy-security nexus was very starkly underlined by the oil crisis of 1973, the ramifications of which haunted the region throughout the 1970s. It also triggered the early ISEAS research interest in energy-related issues. Between 1973 and 1994 ISEAS published twenty- two studies in this subject area. In the late 1980s it helped launch the Asia-Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) which has since evolved into a useful and significant networking event. Today's conference is a continuation of ISEAS' desire to raise consciousness on energy and energy-related issues.

We have been thinking of a broader-based approach towards energy issues, one that recognizes energy as a vital, strategic element. Such an approach would translate into an energy conference which is policy-relevant, which discusses and analyses international energy issues in terms of implications for international and national security. This is our hope for the Singapore Energy Conference or SEC to evolve into the equivalent of the Shangri-la Dialogue on security. Our focus is much more on quality, rather than quantity, with selected speakers noted for thoughtfulness and expertise.

Energy is a very basic need for the economy and also for civilization. Nothing moves and no machine operates without an energy source, whether it is manpower, animal power, natural (wind, water, solar) or fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas, bio-mass) or scientific/technological (nuclear, ion-drive, fusion). When an adversary cuts off energy supplies, this is clearly a hostile act, and is recognized as such. Thus strategists understood why Imperial Japan reacted in military terms to the U.S. action in imposing an oil embargo on Tokyo. This is also the reason why India and China today are concerned about the security of energy supplies, needed for their booming economies. Energy security has thus moved to the top of the international and national agendas.

It is therefore very timely that ISEAS and three government agencies have cooperated to organize and launch the Singapore Energy Conference.