Revision Policy |
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Latest Update: April 26, 2005
This report consists of the following sections:
Revisions may be presented for the most recent estimates of working gas in storage under a number of circumstances that occur after release of the estimates. These include:
II. A respondent submits late data for the week; or III. A respondent reports a change in field operating status; General EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report Revisions Policy Revisions generally are disseminated in the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report according to the established schedule and shall occur when the effect of reported changes is at least 7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) at either a regional or national level. If a revision is made, changes to all regions shall be recorded. Consequently, although all respondents' changes shall be entered into EIA's database for editing, imputation, and other analytic purposes, the changes shall only lead to a published revision when it is at least 7 Bcf. In the event of a cumulative revision of 10 Bcf or more at either a regional or national level, a special release of the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report may occur as described below. The general policy was announced in a November 2002 Federal Register notice, a copy of which is available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oss/WNGSR-Revision-Policy-Nov12-2002.pdf. Subsequently, EIA in early 2005 solicited via a Federal Register notice (70 FR 1426-28) public comment on possible modifications to the existing revision policy to allow certain releases on an unscheduled basis. The response to that solicitation resulted in the following policy that was announced in a Federal Register notice published on April 26, 2005. EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report Policy to Allow Unscheduled Release of Revisions The unscheduled release of revisions to weekly estimates of working gas held in underground storage shall occur when the cumulative effect of data changes or corrections is at least 10 Bcf for the current or prior week. Revisions shall be disseminated on a Federal workday between 2:00 p.m. and 2:10 p.m. (Eastern Time) following notice of the pending release to the public between 1:00 p.m. and 1:10 p.m. (Eastern Time). If a revision is made, changes to all affected regions shall be recorded in the 2:00-2:10 p.m. release. Public notification will occur in a number of ways including a Web site notice of the impending release of revised data that will replace the current Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report, e-mail notification to selected media, and an e-mail notice that will be sent to all users of Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report data who have signed onto a free distribution service. There are two special circumstances related to handling certain data changes in the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report. First, this unscheduled release policy will not apply to data changes resulting from changes in the estimation methodology or parameters because those changes will be announced in advance. Second, reclassification of gas (between working gas and base gas inventories) will be reported only in regularly-scheduled releases of the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report. The policy for unscheduled releases of revisions was announced in April 2005 as a Federal Register notice (70 FR 21406-08), a copy of which is available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oss/WNGSR-Unscheduled-Release-Policy-Final-April2005.pdf. Revisions to the Historical Database The historical database is updated weekly and contains the most current set of estimates available. Although the typical update is limited to insertion of an additional week of storage estimates, prior estimates also may be revised. If revisions occur, the xls file will include a note to that effect in the date comment at the top of the file and a marker in the right-most column that indicates that the estimates for those historical weeks have changed from the estimates released in the prior week. Revisions are noted only in the file released in the week when they occur. |