03 April 2009

GPPi organized policy roundtable on the International Energy Forum and the Joint Oil Data Initiative

GPPi, in cooperation with the Brookings Institution, organized a policy breakfast on 2 April 2009 at Brookings in Washington, DC. Speaking at this event was Dr. Said Nachet, Energy Director at the International Energy Forum (IEF) Secretariat in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event is part of GPPi's ongoing Global Energy Governance program.

The unprecedented volatility of oil prices over the last year and a half has been damaging to both consumers and producers in profound ways and a number of acute fundamental questions have risen: What happened in the oil market? Where were the tools to remedy this volatility? What policies were feasible? What can we do to prevent this from happening again?

There is now a unique window of opportunity for both producers and consumers to come together in order to address these issues, work towards preventing a recurrence of this in the future as well as lay the framework for long-term energy cooperation which would be beneficial to both sides.

In this context, the formation of the International Energy Forum (IEF) Secretariat in 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has served as an opportunity for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to discuss issues concerning the global oil market as well as to pave the way for further dialogue. Additionally, The Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI), coordinated by the IEF in cooperation with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Eurostat, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Organización Latinoamericana de Energía (OLADE), OPEC and the United Nations Statistic Division (UNSD), was formed in order to promote the distribution of accurate data and improve market transparency.

The roundtable discussed the development of the IEF as well as its potential and limits for mitigating against price volatility in the oil market through closer consumer-producer cooperation.

To download the program, please click here.

For more information, please contact Wade Hoxtell.

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