National Petroleum Council Geopolitics and Policy

In October 2005, Secretary of Energy Bodman requested that the National Petroleum Council (NPC) undertake a study on the ability of global oil and gas supply to keep pace with growing world demand.  The secretary stated that key questions to be addressed in the study include:

• What does the future hold for global oil and natural gas supply?
• Can incremental oil and natural gas supply be brought online, on-time, and at a reasonable price to meet future demand without jeopardizing economic growth?
• What oil and has supply strategies and/or demand-side strategies does the Council recommend the United States pursue to ensure greater economic stability and prosperity?

The NPC approached these questions by engaging and involving a broad and diverse group of opinion leaders and interested parties from within and outside the NPC, including the CSIS Energy and National Security Program. Four Task Groups were created to address Secretary Bodman's request from different perspectives: demand, supply, technology, and geopolitics and policy. CSIS brought together an array of experts to form the Geopolitics & Policy Task Group. The findings of this task group and the others were published in the NPC Global Oil and Gas Study in August of 2007.

For more information on this study, please visit the NPC Web site at: www.npc.org