WASHINGTON, September 24, 2018 – The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington is pleased to announce that Kate Dourian and Robin Mills have joined as non-resident fellows, both offering extensive energy expertise.
Kate Dourian has been the programme officer for the Middle East and North Africa in the Global Energy Relations Division of the International Energy Agency since September 2015, building relationships between the IEA and the governments of several Middle East and North Africa countries. She has also helped write and edit the Middle East and North Africa sections of several IEA publications and has contributed to the supply section of the Oil Market Report. Dourian also serves as the IEA’s representative on the executive board of the International Energy Forum. She joined the IEA from the Middle East Economic Survey where she was a senior editor covering energy-related developments in the Middle East from 2013-15. From 2000-13, Dourian was the editor in chief for the Middle East for oil price reporting agency Platts, now a division of S&P Global, based in Dubai. Additionally, she served as a member of the OPEC reporting team and was one of the reporters assigned to compile the OPEC production numbers. From 1983-2000, Dourian was a correspondent and then a senior editor at Reuters, serving in a number of postings including Beirut, Nicosia, London, and Rabat. She joined the energy desk in 1992, covering the Brent crude market and OPEC meetings. Prior to joining Reuters, Dourian worked as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, based in Beirut, Lebanon.
An expert on energy strategy and economics, Robin Mills established Qamar Energy in 2015 to meet the need for regionally based Middle East energy insight. He has led major consulting assignments for the European Union in Iraq, and for a variety of international oil companies on Middle East business development, integrated gas and power generation, and renewable energy. Mills worked for a decade for Shell, concentrating on new business development in the Middle East. He subsequently worked for six years with Dubai Holding and the Emirates National Oil Company, where he advanced business development efforts in the Middle East energy sector. He is a fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy and senior fellow of the Iraq Energy Institute. He spent two years as the non-resident fellow for energy at the Brookings Institution. Mills is a columnist on energy and environment for The National and Bloomberg and the author of the influential report on Middle East solar, Sunrise in the Desert, and two books, The Myth of the Oil Crisis, and Capturing Carbon. “I am delighted to be affiliated with AGSIW, and to contribute to the institute’s examination of the Gulf’s pivotal energy sector, as it confronts new economic, environmental, and geopolitical challenges,” said Mills.
Welcoming both to AGSIW, Executive Vice President Stephen A. Seche said, “Given the salience of energy issues to Gulf Arab states’ ongoing economic-reform efforts – and larger questions of regional stability – being able to draw on the expert analysis of Kate Dourian and Robin Mills will be an enormous asset for AGSIW, and everyone who looks to us for clear and concise explanations of very complex subjects.”
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The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW), launched in 2015, is an independent, nonprofit institution dedicated to providing expert research and analysis of the social, economic, and political dimensions of the Gulf Arab states and how they impact domestic and foreign policy. AGSIW focuses on issues ranging from politics and security to economics, trade, and business; from social dynamics to civil society and culture. Through programs, publications, and scholarly exchanges the institute seeks to encourage thoughtful debate and inform the U.S. policy community regarding this critical geostrategic region.
