The assessment made by experts was part of the second symposium on energy outlooks organized jointly by the three organizations here.

"The meeting demonstrated the commitment shown by the IEA, IEF and OPEC to furthering cooperation and dialogue in the common interest of all," said Simon Stoddart, a spokesman for the IEF.

The three organizations will produce a full report on the symposium, which will be delivered for consideration by the energy ministers at the 13th IEF ministerial meeting to be held in Kuwait City on March 12 to 14, 2012.

The decision to jointly host the symposium was born out of the landmark energy meetings held in Jeddah in June 2008 and in London later that year.

These annual symposia form part of a wider joint program of work agreed by the three organizations, he added.

He pointed out that this joint program was also endorsed by energy ministers at the 12th IEF meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in March 2010 and further encouraged by leaders of the G20 countries in 2011.

Stoddart said the event gathered experts from a diverse range of energy fields. 

A background paper prepared by the IEF and presentations by co-hosts IEA and OPEC on their short, medium and long-term projections set the scene.

"The symposium served to stimulate debate on the methodologies and assumptions applied to a range of regularly published outlooks on the global energy market as well as the degree to which uncertainties influence these projections at any given point in time," said a statement released by IEF.

The statement said the experts also discussed the growing role of non-crude liquids in meeting demand growth; shifting of the geographical structure of demand and refining capacity development.

Several other topics like the methodologies for assessing oil supplies, and importance of timely, accurate data for short-term forecasts were also discussed.

Longer term issues examined included the importance of policy changes, upstream cost evolutions, and the key roles played by investment and technology in generating new supplies as well as the effects of population growth and demographic changes.

Referring to the demand of oil, the statement said both the IEA and OPEC expect robust growth in global oil demand over the medium term.

However, the IEA global medium term oil demand projection is higher than the OPEC's figure by around 1.0 mb/d by 2015.

The higher demand figures by the IEA over the medium-term can be traced to the difference in the base year demand level mentioned earlier.

But, in terms of demand growth IEA medium term projection is lower than the OPEC's growth figure by more than 0.6 mb/d, despite their (IEA) higher assumptions for economic growth.

"When the IEA replicated low GDP sensitivity for the oil demand projection in its model, the demand for crude oil in 2015 came in at about 92.0 mb/d," said the statement, adding that the IEA expects global oil demand to average 93.8 mb/d by 2015, an annual growth close to 1.1 mb/d over the years to 2015 on average, while OPEC puts global oil consumption in 2015 at 92.9 mb/d, an annual average growth of just over 1.2 mb/d over the years to 2015.

The biggest upwards demand growth revision to its assumption is for China.

So far as the medium-term oil demand is concerned , both the IEA and OPEC expect oil demand to be driven by non-OECD countries.

However, the extent of the growth in non-OECD countries differs, creating a difference in the oil demand projections at the regional level.

For other non-OECD countries, comparison of the regional breakdown between specific non-OECD regions is difficult as the OPEC projection separates out OPEC demand, while IEA includes OPEC countries demand within the respective geographical region.

The IEA report expects that the total non-OECD oil demand will overtake the demand for oil in the OECD countries by 2013, while OPEC's report shows that until 2015, the total non-OECD oil demand will overtake the demand for oil in the OECD countries.

When considering the OECD region, the IEA expects oil demand in OECD countries to decline more steeply than OPEC's report estimates by 2015, with a 1.5 mb/d decline in IEA projections from 2010 to 2015 versus 0.1 mb/d or essentially will remain flat in the OPEC outlook.