Most market-intelligence platforms act like advanced search engines, scraping public filings, press releases, and news reports to map industry activity. The result is largely backward-looking data. For global energy companies managing hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and thousands of facilities across multiple regions, that lag can create real exposure.

Executives need to know which refineries are scheduled for maintenance next quarter, when new LNG terminals are expected to begin operations, and where the next tranche of power-generation capacity is being built, often months before any public disclosure.

That type of visibility requires more than web scraping. It depends on direct monitoring of physical assets, project-level tracking, and industry relationships that surface information while projects are still in development. Industrial Info Resources (IIR) occupies that niche, maintaining surveillance-grade data on industrial infrastructure that increasingly shapes flows, pricing, and risk across global energy markets.

Intelligence From the Ground Up

What makes IIR so different is not necessarily what it covers, but how it does so. IIR Energy, the energy division of IIR, operates on a “bottom‐up approach” where “boots‐on‐the‐ground knowledge” is sought out by the firm’s team of investigators. The local research team calls plants, tracks offline events, monitors new builds, and even goes out into the field to engage with direct sources. Furthermore, IIR makes it clear that all data is “twice confirmed and continually updated.” 

This kind of methodology means that when a trader or investor uses IIR’s data feed, they aren’t relying on high-level forecasts or sentiment but on real asset-level intelligence: which units are down, where new capacity is coming online, what pipeline flows are changing.

What IIR Tracks

IIR monitors supply-side industrial data rather than consumer demand patterns. The firm’s database covers refinery capacities, power plant operations, scheduled outages, construction timelines, and infrastructure projects across energy sectors. Its natural gas module, for example, tracks pipeline flows, wellhead production, processing plants, liquefied natural gas facilities, and power plant fuel consumption. The oil and refining database includes outage schedules for more than 700 refineries globally, with unit-by-unit capacity updates posted daily.

How the Data Gets Used

Energy traders and infrastructure investors use IIR’s platform to track operational changes that affect supply. The system generates heat maps showing production capacity, equipment downtime, transmission flows, and pipeline constraints. The natural gas module includes geospatial mapping of flow data at the meter level.

The company provides data feeds and application programming interfaces that clients integrate into proprietary trading and analytics systems. IIR also publishes daily and weekly reports on facility outages, new project commissioning, refinery utilization rates, and regional supply fundamentals. One product is a 60-day power outage forecast broken down by region, delivered daily.

For investors evaluating infrastructure projects, the database provides commissioning schedules, capacity projections, and capital expenditure estimates. When a facility comes back online or new capacity launches, clients receive alerts that allow them to adjust positions based on actual operational changes rather than announced timelines or industry forecasts.

The approach differs from firms that analyze macroeconomic trends or aggregate industry reports. IIR’s focus is asset-specific: which turbine at which power plant will be offline, and for how long. That level of detail matters in markets where a single refinery’s maintenance schedule can move regional fuel prices, or where knowing the exact start date of an LNG terminal affects months of trading strategy.

Why It Matters for Fintech, Commodities, and ESG

In a world of increasingly volatile energy markets driven by geopolitical shocks, transition-capital flows, renewable buildouts, and data center demand, real-time, verified supply-side intelligence is crucial.

Fintech platforms providing commodity analytics, trading firms hedging power or gas, infrastructure funds assessing new build projects, or ESG-oriented investors evaluating transition assets all find IIR’s specificity highly valuable. Because this data is transparent, timely, and unit-level, it lends credibility to algorithmic models, supports discretionary trading, and underpins investments.

In other words, when markets move, it’s not always due to consumer sentiment. When a major refinery unit trips offline or a new LNG train hits the market, it is this kind of intelligence, powered by industry resources, that helps market participants stay ahead of the curve.

In the end, IIR’s value lies in its ability to turn the industrial world’s moving parts into actionable intelligence. By combining field-verified data, continuous monitoring, and asset-level transparency, the firm gives traders, investors, and operators a real-time view of the supply-side forces that shape energy markets long before they show up in public disclosures or price charts. In an era defined by volatile demand, shifting infrastructure, and tighter geopolitical pressure, that kind of visibility isn’t just an advantage; it’s quickly becoming the baseline requirement for anyone making decisions in global energy, commodities, or transition finance.