Letter to Petroleum Supply Respondents Burden Testing

January 13, 2010

Christine Kymn

Department of Energy Desk Officer

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Office of Management and Budget

Washington, DC 20503

SUBJECT: Use of Generic Clearance for Energy Information Administration (EIA-882T(49) 1905-0186) to research the average respondent burden for EIA’s Petroleum Supply Survey Forms

Dear Ms. Kymn:

EIA’s Petroleum Division (PD) is concerned about the accuracy of its average respondent burden estimate per survey. Currently, the burden estimate contained in the OMB clearance package and in the survey instructions reflects a well educated guess based on estimates used in prior clearance packages and the staff’s industry based knowledge.

In order to calculate a more accurate estimate, PD and Statistics and Methods Group (SMG) propose to conduct a survey of PD respondents to ask them what processes are involved in submitting data and what the burden is for the particular petroleum survey(s) which they complete for EIA.

PD is responsible for 16 petroleum supply survey forms. They include seven weekly, eight monthly, and one annual. The proposed study will cover 15 of these surveys. It will not cover Form EIA-815, Monthly Bulk Terminal and Blenders Report as a separate study conducted by SMG will address burden and other issues.

Specifically, EIA will ask survey respondents how much time they spend:

• Collecting and collating data

• Completing the form

• Submitting the survey to EIA

• Doing follow-up with EIA

EIA will contact approximately 12 respondents for each of the 15 Petroleum Supply surveys, for a total of 180 separate respondents. While we expect that some of the weekly and monthly surveys will have the same respondent, for purposes of this research EIA is treating each respondent as a separate person.

For each survey, once the respondents are selected, EIA will telephone or e-mail the survey respondent to explain the research and schedule a phone conference within the following two weeks. This activity should take about 15 minutes per respondent. During the initial phone call, EIA will ask the respondent to look at their previous filings to prepare for the phone conversation. EIA thinks this activity will take about 30 minutes. The next phase is the phone conference, where EIA will ask the respondent about the burden for that particular survey. EIA estimates this activity will take about 45 minutes per respondent.

Thus, the total burden per respondent will be 90 minutes. This is a total 270 hours for all 180 respondents for the 15 surveys.

EIA will begin research with Form EIA-812, “Monthly Product Pipeline Report.” After the research for Form EIA-812 is completed, EIA will move to the next Petroleum Supply survey. At this point, EIA has not decided which one that will be. EIA will repeat the process until we have completed all 15 surveys.

EIA will provide OMB with the results of these tests in the annual summary of generic clearances.

For questions about this research, contact Susan Harris of the Petroleum Survey Management Team at 202-586-8384 or susan.harris@eia.doe.gov. For questions regarding the information request process, please contact Grace Sutherland at 202-586-6264 or grace.sutherland@eia.doe.gov.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Brown

Director

Statistics and Methods Group

Energy Information Administration

Enclosed:

Recruitment Script

Phone Conference Protocol

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