OLADE - Latin American Energy Organization

OLADE, arises from the search for a new equitable economic relationship between Latin American and Caribbean countries, in a regional context marked by large imbalances between the structure of energy consumption and the ability to satisfy it with local resources. At the beginning of the 1970s, during the oil price crisis, the energy authorities of Latin America and the Caribbean, as a result of two consultative meetings, valuing integration as an encouraging option for covering the energy needs of the region and a gradual solution to the large gaps in the trade balances of the oil importing countries, the establishment of a regional body dedicated to energy development was considered.

Aware of the need to coordinate actions for the development of energy resources and jointly address problems related to their efficient and rational use, the region’s energy ministers gathered in Lima, Peru to constitute an intergovernmental body aimed at promoting the use of energy resources as a factor of regional integration, reaffirming the importance of coordinating solidarity actions for their defense and preservation.

In this context, the plenipotentiaries designated by the founding Member States, on November 2, 1973, signed the Lima Agreement, an instrument that, at the forefront of its times, proposes, through the creation of a cooperation and advisory body, promoting energy integration based on solidarity of actions for the independent development of energy resources. In order to achieve these ends, the OLADE constitutive treaty proposes the promotion of effective national policies aimed at guaranteeing the rational use of energy resources, serving as a platform for the design and implementation of a regional energy policy that enables Member Countries to insert themselves as a block in the international scene. In this sense, the Lima Agreement includes among the objectives and functions of OLADE, the coordination of interstate negotiations aimed at ensuring the stable and sufficient supply of the energy necessary for the integral progress of nations, tending industrialization and the corresponding development and the complementation of the infrastructure and means of transport.

It is the advisory body in charge of providing technical support and assistance to the Meeting of Ministers and the Permanent Secretariat, in all matters related to the fulfillment of the objectives and functions of the Organization, in correspondence with the requests and needs of the Member States. .

It acts as a preparatory commission for the Meeting of Ministers and is in charge of carrying out studies and implementing activities entrusted to it by the highest governing body of OLADE. It is made up of Delegates appointed by the Member States.

It meets regularly twice a year, and extraordinarily according to the causes set forth in OLADE’s internal regulations.