The United Nations Statistical Commission at its 36th Session (1-4 March 2005) discussed a programme review on energy statistics prepared by Statistics Norway. The Commission, during its deliberations, recognized the need for revising the existing international recommendations in this area of energy statistics.

Following the Commission’s decision, the Oslo Group on Energy Statistics was established with a mandate to review and contribute to the revision of the United Nations Handbooks and Manuals. In support of this revision process, an Intersecretariat Working Group on Energy Statistics (InterEnerStat) was created with the objective to facilitate the institutional coordination among various organizations active in energy statistics.

UNSD is focusing now on the preparation of concrete outputs which would meet the Commission’s requirements. In particular, UNSD decided to review and consolidate the revised recommendations on energy statistics and accounts, which merit adoption by the Commission, into two documents, namely the International Recommendations for Energy Statistics (IRES) and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Energy (SEEA-E).

IRES will focus on a list of data items, concepts, definitions and classifications for energy statistics covering flows and stocks (over- and under-ground) in physical and monetary terms as well as on data sources and compilation strategies, data quality, metadata and dissemination of energy statistics including the core tables. The SEEA-E will provide the international statistical standard for energy accounts consisting of agreed concepts, definitions, classifications and interrelated tables and accounts. IRES and SEEA-E are seen by UNSD as two complementary documents and their preparation will be fully coordinated. While IRES will comply to the extent possible with the SEEA-E conceptual structure and data needs, SEEA-E will develop its accounting standards on the basis of the IRES (e.g., using IRES definitions of data items and classifications of energy products and flows).