Overview
- Southeast Asian leaders in Cebu, meeting Friday, endorsed swift ratification of an oil-sharing pact, advanced an ASEAN Power Grid, explored a regional fuel reserve, and urged reopening the Strait of Hormuz with a negotiated US–Iran settlement.
- The bloc relies on Middle East supplies for more than half its crude, a squeeze that has driven up fuel and power costs across the region and prompted the Philippines to declare an energy emergency in March.
- Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said the fuel-sharing plan still lacks basics such as who gets priority, how stocks are stored, how they are paid for, and when national ratifications will be completed.
- Singapore’s Lawrence Wong warned that curbs on ships in Hormuz set a risky precedent for Asian sea lanes and backed a proposed ASEAN Maritime Centre in the Philippines to coordinate maritime policy.
- A draft declaration called for tighter information-sharing and evacuation planning to protect more than a million Southeast Asians working in the Gulf should fighting flare again.