Global energy security level assessment index : introduction and application

Abstract

This paper introduces a global energy security level assessment index methodology, focusing on its elements, as well as the application of the suggested index in the assessment of national energy security level. The paper presents criticism of already existing global energy security level assessment methodologies and suggests an improved approach. The newly suggested global energy security index combines energy data and political factors data. Eight indicators are introduced. Each indicator is composed of two variables. The first variable is a share of each country's production or reserves of a specific resource (coal, oil, natural gas, uranium) in the global production or reserves. The second one is the level of political stability of each country that has reserves of the respective resources or produces them. The data of the variables are normalised and the values of the variables are calculated by weighting them. This leads to a single number denoting global energy security level that can be compared on the annual basis. The proposed energy security index takes into account all the states that have reserves and produce resources. Furthermore, it accentuates that the changes in political stability of the countries with the greatest reserves or the biggest production capacities are more important than such changes in the countries less significant in terms of resources. The analysed indexes omit the nuclear fuel element and use the data where small changes have great impact on the final index result. The proposed approach allows measuring global energy security more accurately and independently from the results previous years. Finally, this study suggests that in the assessment of energy security of a particular state the value of the global energy security index should depend on the energy intensity in that state.