Publications - Monographs and Scientific Edited Books

Rising oil prices in the international markets in the last decade have led many countries to rethink their energy policies and to change their perspective related with energy security. For the development of oil prices was found several explanations, while the most accepted and historically experienced inter alia : the growing demand of oil and gas in Asia, lack of investment in the energy sector in the late nineties and early twenty-first century due to the then low oil prices and increasing concentration on the supply side, political instability in major producing countries (Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq and other Middle east and North Africa´s countries) or under the theory of peak oil depletion of cheap oil resources atc. The rise of oil prices on the European market during the twenty-first century remains largely determined the predominant means of contractual arrangements of gas prices also and the impact of these various elements so affected the EU economy by two price channels.

The objective of this book is to provide the scientific assessment of the importance of oil and gas for energy security of the European Union countries and the implications to which this condition leads, in particular for the Slovak Republic using a holistic approach based on a wide range of the possible theoretical studies and by our own empirical evidence.

This monograph is divided into three main chapters. Our intention in the first chapter is to define the importance of energy security as a precondition for access to energy for society and the economy. In this chapter we define the importance of energy for economic growth and development and characterized the economic well-established concepts in the context of oil and gas. We focused on the development of understanding of the concept of security and the position of energy security in it. We have analysed in detail the interpretation of the ideas of energy security. In this chapter we also argued the theoretical justification for examining energy security within the EU 27.

In the second chapter we analyzed the development in the oil and natural gas markets with a primary focus on the factors of supply and demand. We also considered it as a necessary to describe the historical development of both markets, especially since the factors revealed
in the past, now determine the state of energy security in relation to oil and gas. This issue is analyzed not only at the global level,
but in line with the focus of this monograph, analysed in deep the market of the European Union and the Slovak Republic – in addition
to analyzing the supply and demand and political steps that reference entities have taken in the context of energy security.

The third chapter was dedicated to energy policy of the European Union, not only in terms of internal, external dimensions but also in terms of environmental one. Also enough space was dedicated to the analysis of demand and supply of crude oil and natural gas markets of the European Union and the Slovak Republic as well as political actions, which entities have undertaken with respect to energy security. In the fourth chapter, we use mathematical and statistical methods in order to answer the question of how the evolving of energy security of the EU and to identify whether there is a relationship between the economic development and the consumption of oil and natural gas of the EU countries, which would justify a high degree of attention to this issue. In particular, we have used indices of energy security proposed by the International Energy Agency, and calculated for the 27 EU. This calculation was preceded by an analysis calculating the concentration in the markets for oil and gas using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. To clarify the importance of oil and gas in the economy of the EU by the variables - GDP and consumption of oil and gas we have applied Granger causality test. Adequate attention was paid to interpreting the results of the analysis in the case of Slovakia.