City Groups on Statistical Methodologies
   

Canberra Group / Household Statistics (Completed)

Capital Stocks / Canberra I (Completed)
  Measurement of Non-financial Assets / Canberra II (Completed)
Delhi Group / Informal Sector Statistics
London Group / Enviromental Accounting
Ottawa Group / Price Statistics
Paris Group / Labour and Compensation (Completed)
Rio Group / Poverty Statistics (Completed)
Wiesbaden Group on Business Registers (formerly Roundtable on Business Survey Frames)
Siena Group / Social Statistics (Completed)
Voorburg Group /Services Statistics
  Washington Group / Disability Statistics
  Oslo Group / Energy Statistics
  Wye Group / Statistics on Rural Development & Agriculture Household Income

Oslo Group on Energy Statistics

Purpose

To establish a forum for the countries to address issues related to energy statistics and contribute to improved international standards and improved methods for official energy statistics by pooling expertise in the energy community.

Year organized

2006

Participants

Experts from energy statistics producers (statistical offices and other energy statistics producers) from 21 different countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, USA and Yemen. International bodies: United Nations Statistics Division, International Energy Agency (IEA), Eurostat, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and International Monetary Fund Statistics Departments.

Meetings

First meeting: Oslo, 6-8 February 2006

Second meeting: Delhi, 5-7 February 2007

Third meeting: Vienna, 4-6 February 2008

Topics considered

  • User needs for energy statistics
  • Scope of official energy statistics
  • National best practices
  • Selected methodological and quality problems in energy statistics
  • Needs for harmonization of important energy statistics systems
  • Revision of the UN energy statistics manuals, balances and accounts, based on the system of National Accounts
  • Methods for improving consistency in different statistic systems and reducing response burden

Products

 Presentations , papers, reports and all draft documents prepared for meetings and in the process of revision of the UN energy statistics manuals are available on the web-site http://og.ssb.no.

Planned activities

 The Oslo Group at its third meeting agreed to contribute to the UN publication International Recommendations for Energy Statistics (IRES) and a follow-up publication Energy S tatistics Compilers Manual (ESCM) to provide additional guidance to data compilers by describing good practices and discussing technical matters not covered in IRES .

The time schedule for the preparation of IRES:

  • Preparation of an annotated outline of the IRES and a list of issues for a worldwide consultation (mid March 2008);
  • Worldwide consultation with countries on the outline and list of issues (April-May 2008);
  • Conduction of an International Workshop on Energy Statistics to focus on the user needs and data collection capabilities, especially of the developing countries (Q4 of 2008; UNSD offered to fund participation of about 12-15 developing countries);
  • Preparation of the first version of IRES and its review by the 4th meeting of the Oslo Group (February 2009);
  • Revision of the first version of IRES by InterEnerStat at its next meeting;
  • Worldwide consultation on the provisional draft IRES (May-June 2009);
  • Preparation of the amended draft of IRES, its review and endorsement by the UN Expert Group on Energy Statistics [Q4, 2009];
  • Submission of the final draft of IRES to the 41st session of the UN Statistical Commission for adoption (December 2009)

Points of contact

Olav Ljones
Chair, Oslo Group on Energy Statistics
Statistics Norway
e-mail: olav.ljones@ssb.no

Atle Tostensen
Secretariat leader, Oslo Group on Energy Statistics
Statistics Norway
e-mail: atle.tostensen@ssb.no

The Oslo Group web site and discussion forum is available at: http://og.ssb.no.