On October 7, ASEAN’s energy ministers met in Metro Manila, chaired by the Philippines under the theme “Navigating Our Future Together.” The next day, the group met with China, Japan, and South Korea, and then with the wider East Asia Summit partners, which add Australia, India, New Zealand, Russia, and the US. The timing matters. Oil and gas disruption from the Middle East conflict has hung over the region all year, and ministers had already held a special meeting on it on April 27. ASEAN’s new energy outlook warns that demand could reach about four times today’s level by 2060, driven by growth, urbanization, industry, and data centers. Meeting it would take roughly 400 billion dollars a year in investment.

The main answer is the ASEAN Power Grid, a plan to link national electricity systems so countries can share power. Progress is real but uneven. Power trading between Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore now works across several countries at once, and a similar project among Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines is moving through feasibility studies. New links are being discussed between Cambodia and Vietnam, and between the Philippines and Indonesia. Ministers also welcomed a regional planning framework and preparations for a fourth interconnection study. But the rules for undersea power cables are not final, because some governments are still consulting at home, so talks move to Singapore’s chairmanship in 2027. India also used the East Asia Summit meeting to push for cross border power trade, alongside cooperation on emergency fuel reserves.

Fuel security is the second test. Ministers called for faster information sharing, coordinated monitoring, and more diverse supply. ASEAN’s emergency oil sharing agreement, APSA, still awaits approval from remaining members and stays voluntary and based on commercial terms, so in a real shortage no country is forced to share. Japan told the meetings it would help strengthen regional oil stockpiling and supply chains through its POWERR Asia program. Other partners, including the IEA and the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, are also discussing stockpiles, but ministers insisted any new plan must fit inside APSA. Meanwhile, oil and gas remain central to security plans, with new LNG capacity and the Trans ASEAN Gas Pipeline moving forward, and coal still part of several national energy mixes.

Money is the third. Ministers want grid projects to be safer bets for lenders, and they urged faster preparation toward financial close under the ASEAN Power Grid Financing Initiative. They noted that clean energy investment has kept its momentum despite economic pressure and oil supply disruption. Even so, as of 2024 renewables supplied only 14.1 percent of ASEAN’s total energy, against a 30 percent target for 2030, and the region had cut its energy intensity by 25.7 percent since 2005, against a 40 percent goal. Ministers also welcomed new studies on nuclear power financing and carbon capture. The same week, Japan and the Philippines jointly hosted a ministerial on the Asia Zero Emission Community, which counts roughly 600 energy projects, and its ministers called for better energy efficiency in data centers as electricity demand rises.

The deeper negotiation is about control. The US is supporting grid planning and LNG, and is working with Singapore on a study of how to govern and finance regional connections. New dialogues with China, Canada, and the UK start in 2027. ASEAN wants many partners, but wants to set the rules itself.