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Joint Oil Data Initiave (JODI):
Project on Monthly Oil Statistics

The seven international organizations

IEA


The JODI world database can be accessed at www.jodidb.org where you will find monthly data for the biggest oil producing and consuming countries.

The seven international organizations involved in oil statistics, namely, the Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre (APERC), the Statistical Office of the European Commission (Eurostat), the International Energy Agency (IEA-OECD), the International Energy Forum (IEFS), the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Energy and Industry Statistics Section of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) held a meeting in Paris in November 2000 to examine the quality of oil statistics data. The meeting initiated a Joint Oil Data Exercise in April 2001 with the aim of developing a reporting system for monthly oil statistics, seeking the cooperation of countries in providing more timely and transparent oil data, and working on improving the response rate.

The group maintains a website at http://www.jodidata.org/

Monthly oil data for the countries reporting to UNSD is currently available through the Jodi Database link for the following countries:

Angola, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Gabon, India, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Oman, South Africa, Syrian Arab Rebublic and Yemen.

For a complete list of participating countries, please visit the global JODI website:
http://www.jodidata.org/

The pilot exercise requested national administrations to fill out a standard table with the most recent monthly oil data, preferably for the preceding month (M-1). The table format and definitions were designed to be as simple as possible to encourage country participation without unnecessarily increasing the reporting burden. In order to get more transparent data from the original source, the organizations approached their official contacts in each country and directly involved them in the pilot testing of the questionnaire.

The Exercise results were reviewed in meetings held in Riyadh on 10-12 November 2001, in Mexico City on 23-25 May 2002, in Cairo on 7-8 October 2003 and in Bali on 5-7 October 2004. Various aspects of implementation were discussed, ranging from methodology issues, units of measurement, data availability and confidentiality, to communication-related problems. Data submitted were mostly consistent with yearly information. The statistics supplied from more than 70 countries represented more than 90% of the world's total oil production and alos more than 90% of the world's total oil consumption.

In October 2003, Egypt hosted the the fourth international meeting on the initiative. The data quality and reliablity was discussed at the meeting from the point of view of data producers, date users and international organizations. Representatives of international organizations decided to evaluate and consolidate the JODI database - focusing on production, demand, and stocks data. Special attention was paid to the consolidation of data from the 30 biggest producer/consumer countries of the world to make M-1 data available.

In October 2004, Malaysia hosted the fifth international conference where the six organizations and the participating countries agreed on the public release of the JODI World Database within six months. However one of the conditions before the release to the public was that the JODI data had to be of good quality and as accurate as possible. This was why it was decided to set up a Review Committee, composed of oil analysts and statisticians from each organization, with as main purpose the assessment of the quality of the data. In a statement released during the last session of the conference, the six organizations also reiterated their support to the IEFS to act as an effective coordinator of the Initiative as well as their willingness to provide assistance to the Secretariat in establishing a proper structure to take over the coordination. It was decided that the IEFS was to draw an action plan in terms of resource requirements.

For a number of countries, the Exercise has been useful in identifying gaps and inconsistencies in their data sets. For the organizations the Exercise was a way of enhancing communications and data flow in their member countries. Given the consensus for the joint data project, the organizations continue their collaboration efforts in the area of definitions and methodologies.

For further information on this project, please contact:

United Nations Statistics Division
Energy Statistics Section
DC2-1414, 2 United Nations Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10017, USA

e-mail: energy_stat@un.org
Fax: (212) 963-0623


United Nations Statistics Division - Energy Statistics