The Oslo Group Work Plan

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The Oslo GroupWork Plan

• Olav Ljones, Deputy Director General, Statistics
  Norway

24.08.05
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Objectives

• To identify users needs
• To define scope of official energy statistics
• To identify and collect national and
  international best practices
• To review and contribute to the updating of UNSD
  handbooks and manuals on energy statistics
• To identify gaps in coverage (e.g. fuel types,
  flows) and to develop methodology to cover gaps
• To adopt link or develop bridges to international
  standard concepts and classifications in
  economic/environment statistics to facilitate the
  integration and interface of energy statistics
  with other statistical systems
• To recommend a core set of tables as minimum
  requirement at national and international level
  to satisfy major user needs.

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Quality in Energy Statistics, several dimensions.
The most important elements?

• Some examples,
• International standards
• OECD, Eurostat
• UN
• National quality standards
• TQM

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UN principles

• 1. Official statistics provide an indispensable
  element in the information system of a democratic
  society, serving the Government, the economy and
  the public with data about the economic,
  demographic, social and environmental situation.
  To this end, official statistics that meet the
  test of practical utility are to be compiled and
  made available on an impartial basis by official
  statistical agencies to honour citizens'
  entitlement to public information.
• 2. To retain trust in official statistics, the
  statistical agencies need to decide according to
  strictly professional considerations, including
  scientific principles and professional ethics, on
  the methods and procedures for the collection,
  processing, storage and presentation of
  statistical data.
• 3. To facilitate a correct interpretation of the
  data, the statistical agencies are to present
  information according to scientific standards on
  the sources, methods and procedures of the
  statistics.
• 4. The statistical agencies are entitled to
  comment on erroneous interpretation and misuse of
  statistics.
• 5. Data for statistical purposes may be drawn
  from all types of sources, be they statistical
  surveys or administrative records. Statistical
  agencies are to choose the source with regard to
  quality, timeliness, costs and the burden on
  respondents.
• 6. Individual data collected by statistical
  agencies for statistical compilation, whether
  they refer to natural or legal persons, are to be
  strictly confidential and used exclusively for
  statistical purposes.
• 7. The laws, regulations and measures under which
  the statistical systems operate are to be made
  public.
• 8. Coordination among statistical agencies within
  countries is essential to achieve consistency and
  efficiency in the statistical system.
• 9. The use by statistical agencies in each
  country of international concepts,
  classifications and methods promotes the
  consistency and efficiency of statistical systems
  at all official levels.
• 10. Bilateral and multilateral cooperation in
  statistics contributes to the improvement of
  systems of official statistics in all countries

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Quality dimensions

• Relevance
• Accuracy
• Timeliness and punctuality
• Consistence, coherence and comparable( Including
  international
• Accessibility and well documented, transparency
• The best scientific methods
• Independency
• Confidentiality and security
• Response burden, cost effiency
• Do we need some special emphasis and adaptations
  of the quality concept for energy statistics

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Elements in a strategy to improve energy
statistics as official statistics

• It should
• Use international comparable standards
• Fixed release dates
• Well documented metadata
• Pay respect to confidentiality rules
• Be produced by an independent body . Free from
  political pressure be of common interest
• Acceptable accuracy
• Best scientific methods
• Accessibility
• Revision policy

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More elements

• Advices
• Good user contact
• and with respondents
• international contacts
• contact between national agencies
• Staff with high and relevant competence in energy
  and statistics
• Ethical guidelines
• Well documented system of yearly and
  monthly/quarterly data, Preliminary figures r
  revisions, Documentation in international language

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More elements

• Tools
• Manuals and metadata, database for standards and
  classifications, process descriptions
• Release calendar and principles
• User friendly internet dissemination
• Legal base, Statistics Act etc

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International web-site

• Content
• Responsible institution

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Core set of tables

• List of single tables
• Tables based on Energy balances/accounts ?

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Energy balances
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Energy Balances and Energy Accounts

• Do we need both?
• http//www.ssb.no/english/subjects/01/03/10/energi
  regn_en/tab-2005-11-02-01-en.html
• What are the basic differences?
• How we treat the national boundary?
• Other conceptual differences
• Other methods for taking care of the differences
  than compiling different but rather similar set
  of tables,
• Do the present situation create confusion?
• The most observed national differences?
• How to convert national differences in energy
  statistics into international comparable energy
  balances?

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Energy Balances, Accounts, and satellite accounts

• Energy statistics in economic terms, Aggregate
  goods in economic terms and fixed price/volume
  time series
• Energy statistics in physical terms, to
  aggregate goods based on knowledge on energy
  content.
• The importance of both approaches, Build a
  complete system. User oriented
• The methodological challenges. (conversion
  factors, can prices be used for aggregations in
  NA, Quality changes)

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Basic Concepts

• Energy supply and use tables
• Energy products
• Energy Carrier
• Primary energy
• Energy conversion
• Consumption/households
• Intermediate Consumption
• Industry/Function mix
• Import/export
• Methods for conversion factors (physical units)
• Temperature correction (why and how)

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more

• Renewable
• Energy saving
• Metadata, how to develop metadata system suitable
  for energy statistics
• Quality checks Peer review of national energy
  statistical system, By whom, criteria etc
• Eurostat, more legal base
• Same system for energy rich and poor countries?

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More

• Losses, net and gross production
• Time series

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Energy balances in international comparisons

• Example - oil statistics

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Energy sources balance for Norway 2004 Energy
balance for Norway - 2004 Energy accounts for
Norway - 2004
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How can participants contribute to the revision
process of the UN Manual

• Next meeting?
• Program agenda
• Working method between meetings
• What kind of manual are we looking for?

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Best practices