EAG Successfully Completed (Virtual) Regional Energy Security & Resilience Workshop – Caucasus

The NPS EAG successfully completed a Regional Energy Security & Resilience Workshop August 11–14, 2020 in partnership with the NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence (Vilnius, Lithuania) and ADA University (Baku, Azerbaijan). While this event has taken place annually over the last few years alternating between Tbilisi, Georgia and Baku, Azerbaijan, this year’s event was executed virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions. The regional aspect of the program is a unique attribute, as the event gathered 36 government and industry energy security stakeholder participants from Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Lecturers included academia and government officials, as well as oil executives from BP and the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).

The objective of the workshop was to further energy security and resiliency through increased awareness, information sharing, interagency collaboration, and regional cooperation. Several topics were included such as geopolitics of energy, regional geopolitics and energy, threats to energy infrastructure, public-private partnerships in energy security, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure protection/resilience. The workshop concluded with a senior-official panel, where the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Lee Litzenberger; Ambassadors from Turkey and Georgia; and the Deputy Minister of Energy for Azerbaijan each presented formal remarks and participated in a panel discussion question and answer period. The program was effective at sharing best practices and discussing areas of concern common to the growing community of interest that promotes energy security and resilience in the region.

The NPS EAG led the execution of the August 2020 workshop. Faculty from both EAG and NPS’ Center for Infrastructure Defense (CID) provided briefings on energy security, geopolitics and energy, and critical energy infrastructure protection/resilience.

A Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection and Resilience workshop will soon follow, to be coordinated by EAG in partnership with CID experts, with the goal of helping our Azerbaijan partners to identify vulnerabilities and implement best practices to further the security and resilience of Azerbaijan energy systems.     

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Email Larry Walzer at lmwalzer1@nps.edu or call 831-656-3777