Energy Markets, Data & Transparency
In an increasingly complex and interconnected energy landscape, dialogue and collaboration on market trends, investment flows, data transparency, spare capacity, inventories, and emergency response measures are more critical than ever to safeguarding energy security and maintaining market stability.
The International Energy Forum (IEF) works closely with its Member Countries, partner organizations, the global analyst community, academia, and industry to strengthen collective insight and sustain a balanced, forward-looking global energy dialogue amid intensifying risks and rising system complexity.
At a time when relations between producer and consumer blocs are strained by shifting market dynamics, the IEF’s neutral platform provides a vital space for fostering trust, advancing cooperation, and building the shared insights needed to navigate an increasingly uncertain energy future.
As the center of economic growth and energy demand shifts from the Atlantic Basin toward the dynamic markets of the Global South, global energy and supply chain interdependencies are becoming more complex and exposed to new risks. In this evolving landscape, while renewable energy systems are advancing in some regions, established oil and gas supply chains remain essential to global energy security and economic stability.
With global demand continuing to rise, it is both prudent and necessary to keep an open mind toward all fuel types and technologies. Meeting this demand sustainably requires making all energy sources, conventional and emerging, as clean, efficient, and secure as possible. A resilient, inclusive approach to international energy cooperation will be key to navigating this more interconnected and multipolar world.
Meanwhile, the growing scale of cross-border trade in energy products, technologies, and services is exposing critical supply chains and infrastructure to heightened risks, including cybersecurity threats, geopolitical tensions, and conflict-related disruptions. Strengthening collaboration on risk management, data transparency, and emergency preparedness will be essential to sustaining market confidence.
By fostering cooperation and shared situational awareness, the IEF and its partners help moderate market volatility and ensure the global community is better equipped to respond to future shocks and disruptions.
JODI – The Joint Organizations Data Initiative
In addition to its broader interest in promoting energy data transparency the International Energy Forum (IEF) is proud to serve as the permanent Secretariat and coordinator of the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI), a cornerstone of global energy data transparency.
JODI brings together the collective efforts of seven partner organizations, APEC, EUROSTAT, GECF, IEA, OLADE, OPEC, and UNSD, and more than 100 national administrations and industry stakeholders. It is a concrete outcome of the producer-consumer dialogue, unique in the depth of inter-organizational cooperation it fosters across the global energy landscape.
At its core, JODI provides a free, comprehensive and accessible database consolidating key monthly indicators of official data on oil and natural gas production, demand, trade, and stock levels. In addition to maintaining this critical dataset, JODI promotes knowledge-sharing among its partners and drives statistical capacity-building initiatives to enhance data quality and coverage across participating countries.
By improving the completeness, consistency, and comparability of energy data, JODI aims to help reduce uncertainty, supports better-informed decision-making, and facilitates more stable and transparent energy markets. Under the IEF’s stewardship, JODI continues to strengthen the foundations of trust and cooperation that are essential for effective energy security and sustainable market development.
As a complement to this stewardship role the IEF produces the JODI Oil & Gas Data Review each month reporting summary findings from the latest JODI database updates - Subscribe for updates.
IEF Annual Energy Outlook Symposium
The IEA-IEF-OPEC Annual Symposium on Energy Outlooks, held each February in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is a flagship event of the International Energy Forum.
The Symposium is a key pillar of the trilateral work program between the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Energy Forum (IEF), and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which seeks to deepen understanding of short-, medium-, and long-term energy market and policy developments, as well as the interaction between physical and financial energy markets.
Bringing together the latest energy outlooks from the IEA and OPEC alongside perspectives from leading energy companies, market analysts, government ministers, and other stakeholders, the Symposium provides a unique platform for open and informed dialogue. It enables participants to compare assumptions, identify convergences and divergences across forecasts, and promote greater transparency in energy market expectations.
With geoeconomic shifts, market volatility and a widening gap between different energy scenarios, dialogue on energy outlooks, policy and market signals is more important than ever. Produced to improve predictability and boost investor confidence, these outlooks benefit from more inclusive dialogue to enable collaborative and well-balanced approaches to global energy sector transformations.
The Symposium also serves as a catalyst for broader collaboration. Alongside the event, the IEF convenes a series of complementary dialogues with partners such as the European Union, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and others focusing on clean energy transitions, technological innovation, sustainability, and other emerging energy issues.
Through the Symposium and its associated events, the IEF helps strengthen collective insight, support evidence-based policy-making, and foster consensus-building across the global energy community.
In addition to the annual Outlooks Symposium and the technical meetings convened by the IEF with OPEC and the IEA throughout the year, the IEF also produces its own Monthly Outlooks Comparison Report providing a timely comparative analysis of the oil market reports produced by the IEA, OPEC and the US EIA each month - Subscribe for updates.
