World energy database to go live during major Riyadh forum

Dubai (Platts)--17Nov2005

The International Energy Forum (IEF) will Saturday make public the first
global database of energy production and consumption information under the
Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI) for more transparent reporting of market
data, IEF head Arne Walther said Thursday.

     Walther said statistics collated so far as part of the JODI initiative
would be released publicly to coincide with the formal opening of the IEF's
permanent secretariat in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh Nov 17.

     At least 15 oil and gas ministers from major producing and consuming
nations will be present for the inauguration of the IEF's permanent home by
King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who offered in 2000 to create a permanent IEF
secretariat and base it in Riyadh.

     The launch of data under JODI will mark a major development in relations
between producers and consumers while going a long way towards easing fears by
consuming nations about the reliability of reserves data, particularly in
Saudi Arabia, home to a quarter of the world's crude oil reserves.

     Walther said in a statement the decision to make the JODI World Database 
public at this time "was taken with the full knowledge that the database is
still a work in progress and although not perfect for many countries,
timeliness, coverage and reliability are already of reasonable levels for the
top 30 producers and consumers."

     The JODI initiative was first launched by the International Energy Agency
(IEA), the main consumer watchdog, and OPEC, the 11-member producers' club.
Its membership was later supported by four other international organizations
and more than 90 of their member countries. The initial assessment process
included collection of monthly statistics from each member country through a
harmonized questionnaire on 42 key oil data points, he said.

     Walther did not provide any detail as to the type of information that
would be made public nor say whether the world's top two oil producing
countries Saudi Arabia or Russia, would make reserves data public. Some 95% of
global oil production is covered by the JODI group but there are question
marks about the extent of the data that the leading producers are willing to
provide.

     Saudi Arabia, whose crude oil reserves are put officially at 262-bil bbl,
has repeatedly denied suggestions, most recently by US analyst Matthew
Simmons, that it may have overstated its crude oil reserves and might not be
able to meet future demand for crude because its oilfields are in decline. The
quality of data submitted by Riyadh will be crucial to determining whether the
database is a true exercise in transparency of energy reporting data or just
another set of numbers for analysts to pore over.

     The IEF is coordinating data submitted by member states every month for
the two most recent months to member organizations, which in turn pass the
data on to the Riyadh-based secretariat, Walther said.

     "The data are submitted by the national administration of the
participating country to the organization of which they are a member. These
data are considered authoritative and not subject to any alteration by any of
the organizations," he said.

     The initiative was prompted by a need to move toward a common approach
to reserves, to include data not only from state-owned oil companies but also
the multinationals.

     The transparency drive spearheaded by the Paris-based IEA in 2001 was
fueled by several factors, including the Shell reserves reporting scandal, the
contrast between open-sourced material in OECD countries and the secrecy of
the former Soviet Union and its bloc, and the need to get a handle on the
accuracy of some OPEC states' declared reserves.

     A statement by Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Naimi's office in Riyadh
said the oil and gas ministers of Bahrain, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq,
Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar, the UAE, the UK and the US would
attend the opening ceremony. They will be joined by the acting secretary of
the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Adnan Shihab
Eldin, IEA executive director Claude Mandil and the heads of oil majors Total,
ConocoPhillips and Shell.

			--Kate Dourian, kate_dourian@platts.com

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