Coal Survey Exercise – energy ministry

Open the files Old_Coal_Survey.pdf and Prototype_New_Coal_Survey.xlsx. Study the two questionnaires for 10 minutes and identify the main similarities and differences.

You are a representative from the Statisland Ministry of Energy. You have been asked to participate in a group discussion on a new prototype coal survey that the Statisland Office of Statistics has prepared for collecting monthly coal data. You have several concerns about the new design that you hope to bring up during the discussions. Among these are:

1.  The prototype questionnaire proposes to gather coal data on metallurgical coal and thermal coal, but you would like more detail on the types of coal produced and consumed. You would like the data separated by the classes of coal, including: anthracite, coking coal, bituminous coal, sub-bituminous coal and lignite.

2.  The prototype questionnaire requests data on the average calorific value of the raw coal, metallurgical coal and the thermal coal. This is an average value of all the production, imports, exports and uses of the coal. You believe that the calorific values of some of these are different, so you would like data gathered separately on the net calorific values of coal production by coal type (raw, metallurgical, thermal), coal imports by coal type, coal exports by coal type and also for the different uses of the coal (e.g. industrial versus residential).

3.  The prototype questionnaire requests data on the coal sold to the Industry category, but you would like detail on the disposition to several important industrial sectors as well. These include: Iron and Steel production, Non-ferrous metals production (e.g. aluminium), Non-metallic minerals production (e.g. cement and lime) as well as any other non-specified industrial sector.

For the next 30 minutes, discuss your concerns with your colleague from the statistics office and try to address the concerns of the representatives from the coal mining industry. Remain professional and cordial during the discussions but try to obtain the additional level of detail that your require for building the Statisland energy balance and assisting your coal analysts with their work.

Note your conclusions in the box below so that you can discuss them in the group later.

LIST THE CONCERNS OF THE COAL INDUSTRY COLLEAGUE AND THE SUCCESS IN OBTAINING YOUR NEEDS IN THE QUESTIONAIRE