Statistics Committee Policy

The three over-riding policy principles governing IMnI’s Statistics are vertical information flow, anonymity and aggregation by the rule of 3, this last to be implemented when applicable.

All statistical data submitted by members to the IMnI, whether in response to IMnI production/inventory/capacity/consumption (invoiced sales) report forms or requests or otherwise remains confidential in the hands of the IMnI secretariat and under no circumstances shall be passed on to any third party, including other IMnI members. Nor shall such data be published or distributed by the IMnI in any form which could identify the origin or originator of the data, with the exception of the Annual Production Report, which is produced on a country-by-country basis but is only released five months after the end of the previous calendar year.    

No written or oral commentary shall be provided by the IMnI secretariat on any such submitted data to any third party, including IMnI members. No data shall be reviewed or commented on by any IMnI Committee or Committee member unless such data has first been aggregated and rendered anonymous in accordance with these Policy guidelines.

The IMnI secretariat shall refuse to answer any questions or enquiries from members regarding data submitted by any member other than to respond to questions asked by a specific member regarding that member’s own submitted data return and only with a view to rectifying errors or correcting omissions in respect thereof.

All data submitted by members shall be held in electronic form on a dedicated disc accessible only to accredited staff members of the IMnI secretariat. One back-up copy of the data shall be  made and retained in a safe place under the care and control of the IMnI secretariat only. No copies of this information, in any form whatsoever, shall be  passed on to any third party, including members of IMnI, by IMnI secretariat staff members.

IMnI statistical reports will be made available to the general public, members, governments and international organizations as agreed and directed by the IMnI board from time to time. Such method or methods of publication ( for example real time website publication) shall similarly be as agreed and directed by the IMnI board from time to time.

IMnI’s Quarterly Statistics Report on Mn Ore (wet and Mn content) & Alloys shall include figures for production, consumption (real and apparent), capacities, and inventories:

• Trade Data Matrix (publicly available country information – no aggregation)
• Real Consumption (with 4 quarters of forecast)
• Apparent Consumption
• Consumer and Trader Inventory Changes
• Capacity and Capacity Utilization
• Production, Supply-Demand Balance and Member Saleable Inventories
• Unit consumption

Producer members shall provide the IMnI with their production, inventory, and invoiced sales by country figures, along with production estimates for countries or regions where the Institute has no representation. This information shall be provided vertically to the IMnI secretariat, and only to the IMnI secretariat, by each member: no member shall provide, nor be requested to provide, this information to any other member or indeed to any other party.

IMnI’s Annual Statistics Report on Mn Ore (wet and Mn content) & Alloys shall include the same type of reports as in the quarterly reports, yet presented by country, aggregated by year.  Analysis will be conducted in the same manner as for the quarterly data.

• Trade Data Matrix (publicly available country information – no aggregation)
• Real Consumption
• Apparent Consumption
• Consumer and Trader Inventory Changes
• Capacity and Capacity Utilization
• Production, Supply-Demand Balance and Member Saleable Inventories

The figures in the Annual Statistics Report are to be published on a country-by-country and year-by-year basis. 

In order to aggregate and render anonymous submitted data in accordance with an aggregation rule of 3, the Quarterly Report shall be published by region (i.e. IMnI shall publish figures by country only where there are at least 3 producers operating). In accordance with the general policy parameters as stated above, IMnI shall apply this aggregation rule of 3 to all its Quarterly Statistics Reports (with the exception of the trade data matrix which is made from publicly available and will not to be aggregated.)

The aggregated quarterly production, capacity, consumption, and inventory figures will be disclosed on the IMnI website with a 1 year delay. The figures will be aggregated by continent.

IMnI requests for statistical data shall be made available to members quarterly (see Table for dates). One week before the deadline, a reminder shall be sent to members who have not yet responded.

Timetable for the Quarterly Reports

The annual IMnI statistical report shall be released by May 31 each year prior to the Annual Conference (for non member purchasers July 31st), and shall present the data country-by-country, year by year. 

The annual report will be made available to members in electronic format (.pdf and excel), unless they request a hard copy.   (The aggregated Annual statistical report will be disclosed on the IMnI website with a 1 year delay.  The figures will be aggregated by continent.)