Energy ministers from across Southeast Asia are meeting in Manila this week against the backdrop of a Middle East war that has laid bare how exposed the region is to energy brought in from abroad, Arab News reports.
With the US-Israeli war against Iran continuing, pressure has grown on ASEAN to put its proposed energy security measures into practice and to shield member states from price shocks linked to strikes on infrastructure and shipping lanes in the Middle East.
The urgency stems partly from the scale of the region's reliance on the Middle East: more than half of the crude processed by ASEAN's refineries is imported from there, according to the outlet.
