3rd G20 Energy and Sustainability Working Group Meeting

The International Energy Forum (IEF) participated in the 3rd G20 Energy and Sustainability Working Group Meeting held on 1-3 September in Izmir, under the G20 Presidency of Turkey. In response to G20 Leaders' requests to improve energy market transparency, the IEF reported to G20 delegates on progress made to date in three areas: (1) the quantitative analysis accompanying the Joint IEA-IEF-OPEC Report on the Market Impact of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions’ (IOSCO) Principles for Oil Price Reporting Agencies, (2) the activities of the Joint Organisations Data Initiative’s (JODI) to advance both JODI-Oil and JODI-Gas, and (3) the exploratory work under way to assess the feasibility of enhancing data transparency more broadly, including international coal markets.

The quantitative analysis of the Joint IEA-IEF-OPEC Report on the Market Impact of the IOSCO Principles for Oil Price Reporting Agencies involved both a descriptive and an inferential statistical analysis. The descriptive analysis highlighted greater convergence of Oil Price Reporting Agencies’ price assessments for crude markers, while the inferential analysis found that the remaining price differences were not statistically significant. The degree of convergence seen since the implementation of the PRA Principles is considered as a positive development for energy market transparency.

After presenting on the progress the JODI partners have made on the JODI-Oil and JODI-Gas databases, the IEF noted that there is room for their improvement. JODI-Oil would benefit from better inventory reporting and greater coverage, while JODI-Gas can be strengthened with more complete and consistent submissions over time, including gas data in more measurement units to take account of quality variations.

In accordance with the G20 Principles on Energy Collaboration, the IEF noted that G20 leaders agreed to work together: “to encourage and facilitate the collection and dissemination of high quality energy data and analysis” and understands that some IEF countries believe that further analysis of the potential to enhance energy market data transparency more broadly, including to international coal markets, could be a helpful next step.

The presentations delivered by the IEF (see below), complemented Joint IEA-IEF-OPEC Reports delivered to G20 delegates at the 1st and 2nd G20 Energy Sustainability Working Groups regarding the market impact of the IOSCO Principles for Oil Price Reporting Agencies, and the conclusions drawn from a performance evaluation of JODI among its users requested by the G20 at the 1st G20 Energy and Sustainability Working Group Meeting held in Antalya. The IEF findings reflect a continuing collaborative effort and are supported by the IEA and OPEC, as well as by the JODI partner organisations.

Finally, the G20 Presidency of Turkey graciously provided the IEF the opportunity to express its views on the draft communiqué of the G20 Energy Ministers’ Meeting.

Key Links

• G20 Website
• The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO)

Previous Meetings

• 1^st G20 Energy and Sustainability Working Group Meeting, 24-25 February 2015, Antalya, Turkey
• 2^nd G20 Energy and Sustainability Working Group Meeting, 25-26 May 2015, Istanbul, Turkey