Meeting Summary

The APEC - ASEAN Joint Workshop on Energy Statistics was held in Bangkok, Thailand on 28 – 30 January 2013.

Participants from ASEAN member countries and APEC economies namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Russia; Singapore and Thailand attended the joint workshop. Experts from the Institute of Energy Economic Japan (IEEJ), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Energy Agency (IEA), International Energy Forum (IEF) and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) were the resource speakers during the workshop.

Mr. Suthep Liumsirijarern, Director-General of the Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) of the Ministry of Energy of Thailand, welcomed all the delegates to the Workshop and delivered his opening statement. In his speech, he stressed on the importance of energy statistics and the benefits on data quality that the workshop could bring. He also wished the participants to have a fruitful discussion and a pleasant stay in Bangkok.

Mr. Shigeru Kimura, Senior Research Fellow of IEEJ expressed his appreciation to the Ministry of Energy of Thailand for hosting the event. He extended his gratitude to the participants for attending the workshop as well as the experts from FAO, IEF, IEA and IRENA for their contribution to increase the capacity of energy statisticians in APEC/ASEAN region. He gave a snapshot of the agenda of the workshop such as JODI, monthly gas data, quarterly data, annual data, energy consumption data, biomass data and understanding the energy efficiency template of the IEA.

The main items of the Agenda are as follows:

Session 1: Review of 2011 Annual Energy Data
Session 2: Review of Monthly and Quarterly Data Collection
Session 3: Discussion on Biomass Data
Session 4: Discussion on Energy Consumption Data
Session 5: Revision of the APEC-ASEAN Joint Questionnaires
Session 6: Roundtable Discussion

Session 1: Review of the 2011 Annual Energy Data

In this session the participating member economies were asked to show their questionnaires that are filled-in with 2011 data for the review of invited experts. Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand presented the Joint APEC-ASEAN Questionnaires filled out with 2011 annual energy supply and demand data and received comments from the energy statistics experts from IEA, IEEJ, IEF and IRENA. Brunei Darussalam also presented the questionnaires through online conferencing system. The experts gave their comments and asked the countries to revise the questionnaires accordingly.

Russia explained how energy statistics are collected and compiled in the country and credited the IEA’s engagement for the improvement of the reporting of the data.
Mr. Takuya Miyagawa of IEEJ presented the status of CO2 emission, energy price and JODI Annual data collection in the APEC region. He reported that only 7 of the 21 APEC economies submitted the 2010 CO2 emission data and only 5 submitted energy prices data. He also explained that IEEJ estimated the CO2 emissions of economies that did not submit data and presented IEEJ’s methodology in estimating the CO2 emission.

Regarding JODI Annual data, Mr. Miyagawa reported that 10 of the 21 member economies submitted the data. He closed his presentation by requesting all economies to cooperate in all EGEDA data collection activities.

Session 2: Review of Monthly and Quarterly Data Collection

In this session, IEEJ and IEF reported on the progress of JODI Oil and JODI Gas data collection in APEC and in the world as well as the quarterly data collection in APEC.

Mr. Miyagawa reported on the quarterly data collection in APEC. He mentioned that 15 of the 21 member economies submitted data for the years 2011 – 2012 with timeliness improving compared to the previous years. Completeness however, was not very good. Mr. Miyagawa requested all member economies to submit complete quarterly data on time.

Mr. Yuichiro Torikata of the IEF reported on the progress of JODI in the world. He mentioned that JODI has achieved maturity as the database has now reasonable timeliness and completeness and data are used by various players. However, there is still a need to improve on what has been achieved to further uplift JODI’s status in the world. In his report, Mr. Torikata also covered the activities of the IEF in further promoting JODI to policy makers and data users.

Mr. Edito Barcelona of IEEJ reported on the progress of JODI in APEC. For JODI Oil, Mr. Barcelona reported that timeliness in 2012 had worsened as compared to 2011. The average of 16.4 economies submitting data on time in 2011 decreased to 13.7 in 2012 due to late submissions from 3-5 economies every month which submitted at not more than 5 days late. He encouraged the concerned economies to meet the deadline to at least bring back timeliness to the 2011 level. Mr. Barcelona also requested the member economies to check their historical JODI Oil data and fix the problems identified during the 3rd data quality assessment.

On JODI Gas in APEC, Mr. Barcelona reported that there was an improvement due to the submission of data from Viet Nam and Peru. Completeness has not improved as non-OECD member economies just submit about 60-90% of the data requested. He also reported that the IEF will beta-test the JODI Gas database with the JODI organization assessing the database until May 2013. The assessment will be reported at the Next Gas Data Transparency Conference to be held in 2013.

Session 3: Discussion on Biomass Data

In this session, IRENA and FAO presented their agencies’ current activities on biomass energy data. There were also presentations on the biomass data collection in APEC member economies and ASEAN member states. Mr. Olivier Lavagne d’Ortigue and Zuzana Dobrotkova of IRENA reported that the agency will be collecting and compiling data on biomass and is now in the process of preparing a detailed questionnaire for a systematic and transparent data collection system. Mr. Kimura on behalf of APEC and ASEAN expressed willingness to participate in the IRENA activity to harmonize data collection and estimation between IRENA, APEC and ASEAN.

Mr. Beau Damen of FAO gave a presentation on the agency’s new program in Asia which is Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) Approach. The program aims to help countries assess and manage the risks and opportunities in modern bioenergy development. The BEFS approach is a multidisciplinary and integrated set of tools and guidance that support the establishment of an institutionalized dialog among relevant national stakeholders; assessment of sustainable bioenergy potential; risk prevention and management; investment screening and appraisal; impact monitoring, evaluation and response; and capacity building at technical and policy level. BEFS approach could help countries design and implement sustainable bioenergy policies and strategies by ensuring that bioenergy development fosters both food and energy security and contributes to agricultural and rural development in a climate-smart way.

Cambodia, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand presented on how biomass data are collected in their economies. Myanmar and Singapore also explained how biomass consumption data are estimated in their countries. Malaysia mentioned that there is no information on biomass use in households in the country prompting Mr. Kimura to suggest to Malaysia to check the availability of data from the Ministry of Forestry.

Session 4: Discussion on Energy Consumption Data

In this session, some APEC member economies were asked to make presentations on how consumption data are collected in their respective economies. Japan, the Philippines and Thailand explained their economies experiences in the conduct of energy consumption survey.

The presentations were in relation to the energy efficiency indicator template which requires more detailed energy consumption data. The energy efficiency indicator template and its user’s manual were presented by Ms. Mieke Reece of IEA. The member economies appreciated the importance more detailed energy consumption data in monitoring the progress in energy efficiency programs.

A special presentation on energy efficiency of appliances and buildings was given by Mr. Leong Siew Meng of Green Tech Solutions Inc. of Malaysia. This presentation gave pointers on how to estimate end-use energy consumption in the households particularly in estimating the consumption of variable load appliances. It also provided insights on how to design more energy efficient buildings by optimizing passive cooling strategies.

Session 5: Revision of the Joint APEC-ASEAN Energy Questionnaires

Mr. Miyagawa of IEEJ presented the proposed changes to the joint APEC-ASEAN energy questionnaires. One of the changes would be the inclusion of sources of imports and destination of exports of energy. The reason for this change was to determine the energy flow among APEC economies as well as from APEC to non-APEC economies.

Another change was the expansion of the non-energy use of oil to all the final energy consumption sub-sectors. Another change was the inclusion of shale gas and coal seam gas in the natural gas questionnaire. This is to determine the production of gases from these rapidly growing non-conventional sources of natural gases.

The last change was the addition of tables to facilitate the reporting of production of petroleum products from natural gas liquefaction, LNG regasification and Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) production in addition to gas separation plants. This is to eliminate the confusion in the reporting of “Transfers” which is the least understood flow in the oil questionnaire.

The revised questionnaires will be used on a trial basis for the 2012 annual data to be collected in the latter part of 2013, after which the situation will be assessed whether the changes improved the data collection and reporting or not.

Session 6: Wrap-up

In this session, Mr. Kimura asked the APEC-ASEAN participants regarding their expectations on the Energy Supply Security Planning in the ASEAN (ESSPA) project being financed by METI-Japan, which is also one of the sources of the funding of the workshop. Many participants requested that capacity building on energy statistics be continued particularly Lao PDR and Myanmar which requested that capacity building be held in their countries. Cambodia mentioned that it may need assistance for the survey on biomass consumption in the future. Thailand and Indonesia requested to continue the hands-on exercise in filling in the questionnaire in future workshops. Malaysia hoped that new projects will be implemented to improve the accuracy and completeness of data such as energy consumption surveys. Thailand requested for a manual on the Joint APEC-ASEAN annual energy questionnaire. Singapore requested IEEJ to download the data from EMA website and also requested flexibility in submitting the data in other units.

All participating countries/economies promised to continue to support APEC-EGEDA data collection activities. IEA mentioned that the workshop is not only beneficial to the APEC and ASEAN countries/economies but to IEA, IEF, IRENA and IEEJ as well. IEF commented that time devoted to looking into annual energy data is beneficial as monthly oil and gas questionnaire are difficult to submit on timely manner. Mr. Leong, an energy efficiency expert, commented that the residential energy consumption survey questionnaire should be made respondent-friendly to remove the ”fear factor” and possibly focus on the more commonly used appliances to improve response rate.

Before the adjournment of the workshop, Mr. Kimura announced that the 26th EGEDA meeting will be hosted by EPPO, Ministry of Energy of Thailand in November or December 2013. APEC EGEDA focal points will be requested to submit the 2012 annual energy data using the revised questionnaires by end of December 2013.