The Third Meeting of ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement (APSA) Task Force (TF) Phase II was organised by PTT Public Company Limited and Ministry of Energy (MOE) of Thailand on 19 June 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting was attended by participants from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and representatives from the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE), ASEAN Council on Petroleum (ASCOPE) and Energy Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).

The APSA, formulated in 1986, is an agreement among the ASEAN Member States (AMS) that establishes ASEAN Emergency Petroleum Sharing Scheme which is aimed to assist in a time of emergencies when petroleum supply is scarce. To date, the APSA has not been implemented and is still under discussion by the AMS. The TF was established to identify gaps in their efforts to make the APSA implementation more practical and meaningful for the ASEAN region. ACE and ASCOPE have been cooperating in the APSA TF to implement the action plans agreed by the Senior Officials Meeting on Energy (SOME). During the 3^rd APSA TF Meeting, the participants agreed that it is necessary to obtain the direction from the 35^th SOME in July 2017 to move forward with the fully functional APSA. (Featured photo credit: MOE of Thailand)