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G-20 Energy Ministers Highlight Security After Tanker Attacks

The international community will cooperate on global energy security, including taking measures in light of recent attacks.

G-20 Energy Ministers Highlight Security After Tanker Attacks
An oil tanker ship sits docked in the Houston Ship Channel at the Port of Houston in Houston, Texas, U.S. (Photographer: Loren Elliott/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- G-20 energy ministers who met in Japan over the weekend highlighted the importance of energy security in a communique issued at the end of the conference, just days after two tankers were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz.

“In light of recent developments highlighting concerns about energy security, the G20 Energy Ministers acknowledge energy security as one of the guiding principles for the transformation of energy systems,” the communique said. U.S. President Donald Trump has blamed Iran for the vessel attacks near the Strait, a narrow sea conduit through which the Middle East’s crude flows.

Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said at the conference that “there must be a rapid and decisive response to the threats on energy supply, market stability and consumer confidence” according to a Twitter post from the country’s U.S. embassy. The Kingdom will take every measure to protect its oil infrastructure, its territorial waters, its ports and its ships, Al-Falih said.

The international community will cooperate on global energy security, including taking measures in light of recent attacks on tankers, Japan Economy Minister Hiroshige Seko, said at a briefing at the conference that was held in the mountain resort town of Karuizawa.

The communique also reaffirmed “commitments made in Buenos Aires to the full implementation of the Paris Agreement by those countries that chose in Buenos Aires to implement it.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ramsey Al-Rikabi at ralrikabi@bloomberg.net, Aaron Clark, Stanley James

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.