China and the United States pledged to form a task force to enhance cooperation on energy data such as consumption and inventory statistics to improve transparency in a volatile market. The US Energy Intelligence Agency and China's National Energy Adminsitration will set up a team to formally gather energy production data and conduct short and mid-term demand forecasts among other tasks, according to a joint statement. The world's top two energy consumers also repeated their earlier pledges on providing more coherent oil data -- monthly releases of comprehensive and precise production and consumption figures, as well as refinery throughput and inventory data.
China has so far guarded its oil inventory data as secret, fearful that too much transparency will work against its state-oil-dominated sector by encouraging market speculation, Reuters reported. To ensure global energy supplies, the two governments will encourage their oil companies to jointly hunt for oil and gas in a third country, according to the statement, issued at the end of the U.S.-China economic dialogue.
The two countries also vowed to work closely on developing unconventional energy resources such as shale gas, where the US has made breakthroughs in the past decade and China is keen to play a catch-up to meet its surging energy demand. China and the United States will hold their fifth China-US energy policy dialogue in September in the United States, at which shale gas will be a focus.
