ISTANBUL, Turkey, June 27 (UPI) -- International oil companies must change their policies if they are to remain relevant, the International Energy Agency's chief economist said in Turkey.
"If the IOCs don't change their existing business strategies, they will only be niche players in the medium term," Fatih Birol, chief economist of the Paris-based agency, said Wednesday.
The comments were made at the "East Meets West: New Frontiers of Energy Security" conference organized by Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Istanbul.
He said IOCs' access to reserves has decreased, as has production -- trends he expects to continue.
The oil business is dominated by national oil companies, but IOCs, which are largely Western, "have the capital, the know-how, but they don't have the reserves."
The current reserve replacement ratio of the Top 5 IOCs has fallen, and it has become more difficult to replace reserves despite rising oil prices, Birol noted. He said that if $4 were to be invested over the next 25 years, $1 would go toward developing new fields and $3 to maintain existing capacities.
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Krishnadev Calamur and Ben Lando, UPI Energy Correspondents
