On May, 12th, Institute of Energy Policy and Research (IEPRe), Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) has organized an hour-long live webinar session entitled ‘The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Energy Market’. The speaker of this webinar was Professor Dr. Ken Koyama, the Managing Director of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ). He is also currently the Chair of Energy Economics of Energy Commission at UNITEN since 7 December 2015.

The live event was moderated by Dr. Siti Indati Mustapa, the Director of IEPRe. The webinar commenced at 10.30 a.m. with a brief overview of the statutory functions of IEPRe and the introduction of the speaker, Professor Dr. Ken Koyama.

Professor Dr. Ken Koyama delivered an enthralling outlook on how COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global energy market. He started by explaining the over-supply circumstance of the energy market before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. As lockdown befalls in various countries, the destruction in the global oil demand resulted in a demand shock. The unprecedented over-supply then causes extremely low oil price. As a consequence, there is a 3% drop in the global GDP as of April 2020. Besides the effect of the pandemic on the global oil demand, Professor Dr. Ken Koyama also highlighted the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people, goods, and monies.

The speaker led off the webinar by presenting different scenarios such as the Lehman shock of 2008 and the US-China trade war whereby people, goods, and monies have been affected similarly to the impact of COVID-19, albeit slightly unalike. The speaker compared the present lockdown to a longer pandemic scenario, stating that there will be a significant reduction in oil demand in various regions including Africa, Middle East, Non-OECD Americas, other non-OECD Asia, China, OECD Americas, OECD Europe, OECD Asia Oceania, FSU and other European regions. In addition to oil demand analysis, natural gas, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand analysis under the COVID-19 pandemic was also presented.

The live webinar had 114 participants from various organizations within and outside Malaysia. The organizers engaged the attendees to send in questions while the webinar was in progress. Among significant questions raised by the attendees include

1. The global spread of the virus is increasing and its curve is not flattened yet. However, it was presented that the turning point in energy demand is in the 2nd quarter of the year. Why is it so?

2. In your opinion, with the volatility of energy prices, will LNG detach from being indexed to oil, and have its price marker?

3. How does COVID-19 affect advances in transportation technology? How far will this prolong the usage of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, considering that alternative technologies could be more expensive comparatively?

The speaker was however optimistic that the World GDP might experience a positive progression from 2021 as the demand for oil, gas, and LNG begin to rise. The speaker concludes the webinar by enumerating the long-term implication of the COVID-19 pandemic as structural restrained in transportation demand, the substitution of transportation demand by digitalization, shift in the priority of the “3E” (economic, energy, environment), implication on decarbonization and energy security, and the rise of “me-first” trend and its impact on geopolitics.

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