And when you look big picture, how should we think about demands, drivers of demand, and the sort of big trends on the supply side that people should be aware of?

So on the demand side, we see that almost all the fuels are growing very strongly, oil, gas, in some countries even coal, but renewables make a huge move.

But when I look at the entire picture, what I see is that electricity is growing much faster than anything else.

When you look at the history of energy, The Industrial Revolution, for example, was fueled mainly by coal.

So remember the novels of Emile Zola, for example, the workers bringing from coal mines to the factories.

So it was the age of coal.

Then, especially after the Second World War, the oil and then natural gas were the main supplier of the global economy.

What do you see as the main obstacles? Is it technology? Is it capital? Is it policy? Is it lack of interconnection? Where would you emphasize to accelerate that transformation in Europe and

And you have a deliverable maybe coming up at the UNGA session at the UN, so we'll watch for

that.

UNGA meeting and also beginning of next year.

In fact, we were organizing a major event with 2,000 people in Nairobi, but because of Ebola.

We have postponed this early January, hopefully.

But this problem can be solved, because in India, there was the same problem.

And we worked with the Indian government, and there's a program called Ujwala program.

What's going on there and what can we expect next? How long can this last?

Well, the Europeans have also said they will not pay for passage, but, uh, as it stands, do you now begin to factor a scenario in which, uh, and I know it's extreme, but do you think $100, uh, a barrel oil is possible? What, what numbers are you looking at, uh, in terms of your new scenarios?

Yeah.

It is, uh, there are so many uncertainties, and the, but the uncertainties are not related to energy sector.

It is related to the politics and the, and the, what is happening in the conflict, uh, over there.

If, uh, Hormuz is c- closed again, we may see a upward pressure on the prices with, uh, significant implications on the, uh, economies.

What is the key now for Europe to be able to have homegrown energy at an affordable place? Because what companies in European, uh, across Europe continue to say is competing on the energy front with the US, which is pretty much self-reliant, and the Chinese, is very difficult.

So here, the main option we have is electrification.

We have to electrify our energy, our economy as much as possible, which means more electric cars, more heat pumps, uh, industry more electrified.

How much velocity will there be to policy change and structural change?

There will be a lot of immediate changes happening, but there are also going to be is some major strategic choices that the countries are making.

Let me give you a few examples.

First of all, in terms of the, uh, building alternative pipelines, both Emirates and, uh, Saudi Arabia or, uh, Emirates and the Saudis, Israel, and other countries making stockpiling in other countries, in India, in, in Japan, and elsewhere.

These are first reactions.

But coming more, uh, we see that the electric car, uh, sales, uh, in Southeast Asia, the, where the bulk of the, uh, the impact, uh, took place, is also, uh, going up.

But there'll be also long-term implications.

Is it an Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding that extends beyond 60 days, or is it a reopening, a significant and substantive reopening of the northern route through the Strait?

What's the alternative? What can be done?

So, in fact, as a world, we are a bit fortunate because before we entered this crisis, before the 28th of February, we had a lot of oil in the markets, a surplus of oil.

And after this crisis has started, we use the surplus and we release some stocks.

We are using that as well.

And the stocks are coming to almost a zero line.

If the stocks continue to come down so much, Plus, the July-August demand is going up because of the traveling season.

So I would call we are entering the red zone in terms of the implications on the markets.

bash Europe?

Our Europe editor, Maria Tadeo, sat down with the agency's executive director, Fatih Birol, in an exclusive interview from Paris, where they discussed the outlook for Europe and, of course, the risks ahead.

I label this, uh, crisis as the largest energy crisis in the history.

We had three energy crisis up to now, and two oil crisis in 19- uh, 70s, 1973 and 1979, and in 2022, after the Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Europe we had a natural, uh, gas, uh, crisis.

If I add how much oil and gas we lost in this, all three crisis, it is much less than what we lost in the Middle East crisis, Iran crisis now.

It's a huge problem for the global energy system, global economy for Europe and, uh, beyond.

But is that the case?

Yeah.

So the reason I said this is very simple.

How bad could it get?

So I call this the biggest energy crisis in the history, uh, because of the following reason.

When we look at the last fifty, sixty years, we had three major energy crisis: nineteen seventy-three oil crisis, nineteen seventy-nine oil crisis, and after the Russia's invasion of Ukraine in Europe, we had a major, uh, natural gas crisis.

The amount of oil and gas we lost in this, all these three crisis, if you put it together, is much less than the oil and gas we lost in this current crisis.

So this is the major biggest crisis of energy.

Plus, it is not only energy.

The amount of fertilizers, petrochemicals, sulfur, the li-- uh, the helium flowing from, uh, this very Strait of Hormuz is interrupted, and this will have devastating implications, especially for the developing countries, and we will find out more and more how important they are, uh, for our, uh, daily economic businesses.

But do you, do you believe, given what you just said?

What would the consequences of that be?

So what will happen as soon as it is open, if it is the end of May, there are more than 100 tankers loaded with a lot of oil and about 11 LNG tankers loaded with natural gas.

They will come to the markets.

It will take some time, but they will go to the markets.

It will provide an initial comfort.

Having said that, to come back to the levels of production before the war will take some time because several energy facilities in the region have been damaged.

We monitor all these facilities, oil fields, gas fields, the refineries, pipelines.

Any other winners?

It's now really being suppressed by the shift to clean energy.

There are two things.

One, the immediate response and a bit structural response to that.

Immediate response is, I think, The LNG markets, because some of the, at least two major LNG exporters badly hit Qatar and Emirates, both of them.

So it will take some time.

They come back to their normal capacity of exports.

And in the meantime, we will have some higher natural gas prices, which in turn, would provide incentives for the consumers to look at the renewables workers and in some cases coal as well.

If I can sort of A, B test that, those are two extremes, where do you sit? I think the...

What do you think about, um, European governments which subsidize energy bills for its citizens?

I think if it is, if it is, uh, done in a targeted way and in a temporary way, this may well, uh, be a solution.

You know, what is the problem in Europe? There are many problems in Europe, but one of the problems is because of this.

Now, first of all, uh, Europe, uh, was the...

I talk with many government leaders around the world, but I think Europe, uh, uh, ref- uh, how to say, reflects was a bit slower than the others.

It is an Asia issue.

It is a Middle East issue.

But, uh, could you just lay out what do you think will be the changes?

Just what do you, uh, what metrics are you looking at?

So, uh, you know, we have many energy crisis, uh, unfortunately.

But when you look at the last couple of decades, three of them, uh, stand.

Uh, one of them, the 73 oil crisis, 79 oil crisis, and, uh, 2022 Russia invasion of, uh, uh, Ukraine on gas.

So when you look at the oil crisis, 73, 79, uh, in both of them, we lost each about 5 million barrels per day of oil, so five plus five, it is about 10, and, uh, uh, uh, we all know, uh, that this, uh, oil crisis led to, uh, global recession in many countries, developing countries, a foreign debt spiral they, uh, fell into.

And today, as it takes stand now, uh, we lost 12 million barrels per day, so two, more than two of these oil crisis put together.

In terms of natural gas, uh, uh, when, uh, Russia cut the gas, uh, we lost around 75, uh, BCM of, uh, gas.

What do you think about, um, European governments which subsidize energy bills for its citizens?

I think it is

a historical deal for Europe because Russia has been the number one energy supplier of Europe over half a century since 1970s and natural gas was the most important fuel here until recently about half of the natural gas consumption in Europe came from Russia.

So after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia using natural gas as a weapon, Europe took this decision, European countries.

It is historical.

And on one hand, of course, I congratulate the European countries, but on the other hand, The market context we are in is also helping Europe, creating a room of manoeuvre such as huge amount of LNG, liquefied natural gas, coming to markets starting from 2026 through 2030.

So there will be a lot of alternatives to Russian gas for European countries.

Is there a risk, though, that European countries simply replicate the situation they had of an over-reliance on a single supplier by turning to other countries? We know that the United States has also talked about wanting Europe to buy a lot more LNG from them.

In fact, when we look at the history, the story with the...