Chapter 1:
1. The use of "energy products" and "energy sector" probably needs
to be revisited. See my comments to Chapter 2.

2. In footnote 10, the IEA in not in the list of organizations that
use energy statistics.

We are in favour of Box 1. When the Oslo Group was established by the UN Statistical Commission it was one recommendation that energy statistics be developed as part of official statistics. This is why the principle of official statistics should be highlighted in the introduction of IRES.

We agree with Statistics New Zealand that the level of language should be adjusted to the users. We hope that IRES will be translated to major languages, but there will still be many users of the English manual.

In para 15 - 20 there are two recommendations. In para 18: “It is recommended that international organisations play an active role in IRES implementation and assist countries in developing energy statistics work programmes as part of their national official statistics”. And in para 20: “It is recommended that official energy statistics are treated as a public good and the agencies responsible for dissemination of official energy statistics ensure that the public has a convenient access to these statistics.”

We agree with Statistics New Zealand that para 15-20 is where these actions should be described.

We encourage the writing team to take into account Statistics Canada's suggestions.

In chapter 1 – paragraph 13 does not read well – I am not totally clear what the authors are trying to say here so can’t offer a rewrite.

1.. To my opininion this chapter should contain a little more about required budget.

On the one hand it is strongly recommended that energy statistics should meet the high standards of 'official statistics' (which I agree).

On the other hand in E45 is said 'recommendations are not intended to be prescriptive and should be implemented by countries in a way appropriate to their own circumstances, including identified user needs, resources, priorities and respondent burden.'

In my view there is a contradiction. To be able to make high quality 'official' energy statistics you need a minimum level of available budget (which of course can vary from country to country), while the statement in A45 is too 'noncommittal', to be serious with the recommendations.

There should be included some kind of recommendation (signal) to policy makers to provide sufficient budget ('Nothing is for free'). This is important because policy makers tend to ask more and better statistics, while budgets for making statistics are reduced more and more by cutbacks (at least in my country!).

2.. In relation to the above mentioned: It is not clear whether
- IRES contains the minimum level which all countries should meet (and countries may go beyond IRES-level voluntary for national purposes)
or
- IRES contains a sort of 'maximum' or 'reference' level, where countries may leave out elements (quantity and/or quality) according to their available resources and priorities.

The manual should be clear on this and consistent throughout all chapters of the manual (which is not the case now).