Abstract :
The IEA was established in 1974 with a mandate to promote energy security amongst its members, namely the states of the OECD, and to advise those members on sound energy policy. Its recent forecasts of the medium and long term prospects for oil supply, however, have wavered, alternating from optimistic to pessimistic and back again. For policy-makers, such inconsistency is difficult to deal with. Firstly we examine whether the changing outlooks seen in IEA forecasts made between 2007 and 2010 truly reflect a demonstrable, underlying change in the known facts, and we can find no such factual changes reported by the IEA. Secondly we examine whether the serious criticisms of the IEAʹs (2008) forecast made by other analysts have yet been addressed, and we conclude that they have not. Thirdly we consider the possible effects of the current economic downturn upon the IEAʹs assumptions and upon future oil supply. We conclude that all the forecasts made by the IEA appear to be too optimistic throughout this period.
