What is, in blogistan, I imagine a long time ago(last May not long after we started this site) I commented on the apparent good news that the International Energy Forum had a Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI) which would provide more transparent reporting of oil market data.  Since then there have been some complaints about the quality of the data that was being furbished, but I see that Platts is now carrying a story that the database will go live this weekend.

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.

Well it will be interesting to see what exactly is new about the data that will be made available.  Bear in mind that there are really two issues that should be addressed in such a data base, the first being the exact nature and size of the reserves, on an individual field basis; and second the actual production rates from those individual fields.

It is the latter point that concerns me more than the former, although there are a lot of concerns about that too.  The reason for this goes back to the presentation that first got Matt Simmons into a discussion with Saudi Arabia about their situation.  And he returned to it last week in his comments in Denver.