Annual Coal Mines Survey (ACMS)

Detailed information for 2009

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Annual

Record number:

2177

The survey collects financial data from coal mine operations in Canada.

Data release - February 7, 2011

Description

The survey collects annual data from all coal mines operating in Canada with sales in excess of one million dollars.

The information is used as input to the System of National Accounts. Provincial agencies are also provided with data on a regular basis.

Reference period: Calendar year

Collection period: Data are collected within 5 months after the reference year.

Subjects

  • Business performance and ownership
  • Coal
  • Energy
  • Financial statements and performance

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The universe consists of all coal mines operating in Canada with sales of $1,000,000 or over during the year.

Instrument design

The questionnaire comprises operating revenues, number of employees, salaries and wages, cost of fuel and electricity, process supplies and other statistics of a general nature.

The questionnaire is respondent completed.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore, no sampling is done.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

The 'preliminary' annual estimates of coal production (volume and value) are based on monthly data collected by the Coal Monthly survey (record number 2147); they are produced to satisfy a requirement of Natural Resources Canada for early estimates.

The data are collected by Head Office through a mail-out/mail-back process. Follow ups are conducted by phone or fax as needed to reach the target response rate.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

Data for the respondent are compared with data for the same respondent from the previous year.

Imputation

The response rate for this survey is over 90%. As a consequence, minimal imputation is required and minimal bias resulting from non-response is introduced in these data. If required, imputation is done manually. The results are confronted and validated against other sources such as company annual reports.

Estimation

The actual annual data on coal mines operations are based on a census of all coal mines operating in Canada with sales of $1,000,000 or over during the year; no sampling is done, therefore no estimation techniques are applied.

However, in the case of the 'preliminary' annual estimate of coal production (volume and value), a process is applied to estimate a price for coal which is coupled with volume estimate derived from the Coal Monthly survey (record no. 2147) in order to generate an estimated value of production.

Quality evaluation

The quality of the data to be released is evaluated in the following ways:

- Revenues from the sale of coal are compared with those reported by the respondent in the Coal Monthly Survey (record number 2147).

- Company data from the survey is compared with the annual report of the company.

- On an aggregate level, employment data are compared with data from the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (record number 2612).

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Data accuracy

The survey is a census of the target population, which is very stable, and the response rate is very high (over 90%). As a result, under-coverage is minimal, and minimal bias resulting from non-response is introduced.

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