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®: CRE Regulatory Action of the Week
EIA Proposes Change In Disclosure Of Petroleum Supply Statistics
The Energy Information Administration collects information on the Unites States' petroleum supply through EIA's Petroleum Supply Reporting System survey. Much of this information comes from private industry and would normally be considered confidential business information. EIA takes the collected information and uses it as the basis for publicly disseminated statistical information. These statistics are probably the most important source of information about the nation's petroleum supply. They are used by many entities ranging from Congress to other agencies to competing private companies. EIA has not used methods for preventing identification of individual information sources when it disseminates most petroleum supply statistics. EIA has, however, used disclosure limitation methods for statistics based on new products or product breakdowns that have occurred since 1986. Beginning in January 2004, EIA proposes to abandon its current practice with regard to this protected class of petroleum statistics. Under EIA's proposed new policy competitors might be able to extract an individual company's petroleum information from publicly disseminated EIA statistics. While EIA's proposed new policy would provide more public information, it could also create new competitive advantages by providing indirect access to very valuable proprietary information. Comments are due by December 22, 2003.
Click for the Federal Register notice of EIA's proposed new disclosure policy.
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