| 摘要 | ABSTRACT
1. Background and Research Objective Abstract
The environment of the global energy market has significantly changed, compared with a few years back, in the wake of major events and accidents such as the shale revolution in North America and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Until the late 2000s, global energy prices kept rising under the perception that energy demand would continue to increase while supply would be limited. Major energy-consuming countries were engaged in stiff competition to secure energy resources. More recently, however, the global energy market has shown significant changes; Concerns about global oil and gas supply shortage are eased and global energy prices do not fluctuate despite serious factors which would otherwise have caused energy price hikes in the past, such as military confrontation with IS rebels in Iraq and export ban on Iranian crude oil.
The major driver behind these changes is the expansion of unconventional resources development in North America. Indeed, it is changing the perception of the availability of energy resources and trade structure. Most of all, it is expected to fast increase the supply of natural gas and oil, thus helping to ease supply shortage in the mid-to-long term. Meanwhile, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown of 2011 had significant impact on the energy policies of countries around the world. It put a brake on the proliferation of nuclear power generation which was once touted as an alternative source of energy supply to cope with rising oil prices and climate change. In many countries, the future of nuclear power became uncertain due to safety concerns. In addition, extreme weathers caused by climate change increase the possibility of new types of supply disruption. Public aversion to having energy facilities in their neighborhood delays much needed investments in energy facilities, which emerges as a new threat to energy supply in the mid-to-long term.
Changing environment in the energy sector, as such, has considerable impact on the profile of energy security risks and the relative impact of the risks. Thus far, discussions on energy security have focused on geopolitical instability in major energy producing regions such as the Middle East and Latin America, and the possibility of consequent supply disruption. The changes seen in the energy sector more recently necessitate new assessment of energy security risks and the situation of energy security from a different angle. The purpose of this research is to analyze how changes in the domestic and overseas energy sectors affect the profile of energy security risks, assess the responses of Korea, and come up with policy suggestions.
2. Summary
Since the 2000s, the concept of energy security has evolved into a more broad concept in the wake of accidents and events related to energy and geopolitics such as blackouts in California and Europe, 9.11 terrorist attack, Iraqi war, Hurricane Katrina, Spring of Arab and Fukushima nuclear meltdown. If we look at past discussions on energy security, three elements were consistently mentioned in the concept of energy security between the mid 1980s to date; adequacy of supply, reliability, and reasonableness of price. In other words, promotion of energy security means efforts to prevent serious deterioration of these three basic elerments--adequacy of supply, reliability, and reasonableness of price, reduce the possibility of their deterioration or address energy supply disruptions without big economic losses.
When it comes to the assessment of energy security risks, separating background elements from triggering events is a useful way to assess energy crises and their probability to occur. Both of them form energy security risks but there is one big difference. Background elements refer to events which cause immediate supply disruption, such as export ban on oil and gas, war, extreme weather and sabotage. Triggering events refer to a situation or state such as the level of concentration in resources distribution, suppliers' market dominance, lack of investments and backlog on marine transportation routes. They do not cause supply disruption on their own but deteriorate supply disruption when it happens.
Major types of main background elements mentioned in past energy security discussions were the potential of resources supply and demand growth outlook which foretell the possibility of long-term supply shortage, changing concentration of transportation route, political stability in major energy-producing countries. One major change today is that the expansion of unconventional resources reduced global dependence on energy supply from the Middle East which is grappling with political instability, and it became less likely that the depletion of resources would result in energy shortage in the mid-to-long term. Meanwhile, the likelihood of supply disruption by short-term accidents and events increased since rapid growth in Asia��s energy demand is expected to deteriorate supply imbalance among regions and increase transportation volume heading to Asia at major logistics hubs. In addition, political instability continues in top ten oil-producing countries of the world. In the wake of the ��Spring of Arab,�� increased social spending to contain socio-economic issues in the oil-producing countries pushed up their fiscal break-even oil prices. When international oil prices drop, they would suffer the vicious circle of fiscal deficit and political instability, and therefore it is still possible that supply disruption may continue to stay to a certain extent.
Historically, major oil crises can be classified into several categories based on cause. The most frequent cause was wars and domestic disputes, mostly in the Middle East. The second most frequent was facilities shutdown caused by accidents and natural disasters, such as explosions of oil producing facilities and hurricanes in North America. Off-shore oil production facilities were more prone to accidents, and recently hurricanes caused many facilities to be submerged or shut down, which calls for better readiness to cope with possible supply disruption caused by climate change.
Supply disruption of natural gas was usually caused by facilities destruction by natural disasters, explosions and fires at gas production bases, facilities damage or shutdown by attacks and occupation in areas plagued by political instability with domestic wars, and gas price dispute between Russia and Ukraine. The most frequent type of cause was natural disasters. Once hit by a natural disaster, the scale of supply disruption was much greater than that of the other causes. Meanwhile, there were not many supply crises in the coal sector. Coal supply disruption was caused usually by two causes; China's coal export regulation and natural disasters in coal-producing countries.
The major drivers of change in the global energy market are as follows; (i) expansion of unconventional resources development, (ii) deterioration of climate change and (iii) increase of energy security risks at home and abroad. The changing landscape of the energy sector affects the profile of energy security risks and necessitates preparations for new types of risks.
Expansion of unconventional resources development in North America is emerging as a game changer which affects the supply volume and prices of fossil energy, the trade structure in the global energy market and geopolitics surrounding energy. Increasing production of shale resources is expected to increase supply to the global LNG and crude markets and stabilize prices. It is less likely that energy-producing countries use energy as political weapon to enhance their influence in international politics, thus further stabilize the global energy market. North America is the source of energy which is more accessible and provides a stable and flexible environment for investment and trade. A greater share of the region to the global energy supply is expected to infuse flexibility into the rigid energy trade and promote efficient transactions in the global marketplace. The shale gas revolution affects not only the global energy supply structure but also the US' strategic positioning in climate change negotiations. Possibly, it will induce global discussions on a new climate system after 2020 to take a turn to a new direction.
Another difference with energy security risks is physical implications of climate change. Deterioration of climate change influences relative economics between energy resources and aggravates the types and intensity of risks which were previously unrecognized or trivial under the existing energy systems or projects. Energy supply can be threatened by abnormal weather conditions such as changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level and weather pattern, more frequent droughts, floods and storms, and extreme heat or cold waves, and they cause technical glitches and shutdowns of existing energy facilities and systems which were designed to fit stable weather conditions of the past. On the demand side, the scale and duration of peak energy consumption is increasing, which necessitates the expansion of energy supply facilities in order to assure supply-demand balance at peak times.
In addition, the increase of domestic risk factors is another difference witnessed in the current risk profile of Korea's energy security. In the past, the focus area of energy security was the stable import of energy in terms of both import volume and price. Once a sufficient amount of energy is imported, it was believed, supply-demand balance could be maintained by control and measures of players in the distribution stage, such as the government and suppliers. Recently, however, domestic factors emerged as more serious threats than external factors to energy security. Social conflicts escalated over the issue of where to construct energy supply facilities and consequently investments were delayed in the construction of power plants, power transmission networks and LNG take-over bases, which raises concerns about supply disruption down the road. |
