This text is based on presentations by the author in the opening and closing sessions of a conference on World Oil Market Data - Enhancing Transparency called and addressed by the US Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson and Vice-President and Minister of the Economy Rodrigo de Rate and held in the Palace Hotel, Madrid on 14-15 July 2000. It was attended by 20 staff members of the US Department of Energy, 20 senior Spanish officials, one invited representative from each of 20 countries, a number of invited speakers and a group from the International Energy Agency, Paris led by Deputy Executive Director, Ambassador William Ramsay and Head of Energy Statistics, Jean-Yves Garnier. "The mind which has feasted on the luxurious wonders of fiction has no taste for the insipidity of truth" - Dr. Samuel Johnson 1709-1784