Timing and Updates
How often are the reports updated?
Commodity Production Costs analyses are updated on a quarterly cycle. Each quarter, the catalog is reissued as a new Series, with every analysis recalculated using that quarter's raw-material and utility prices, wage rates, and cost inputs.
Only the latest version of a report can be purchased. Once a new Series supersedes an earlier one, the earlier versions are retired and can no longer be bought — so any report obtained always reflects the most recent quarterly analysis for its process and country.
What is the period of analysis?
Summary
The period of analysis is the single quarter a report represents. Its raw-material and utility prices, wage rates, and resulting product value are all calculated for that one quarter — a point-in-time picture built from final data, with no forecasts.
The period of analysis is the single calendar quarter a report represents. Every price, rate, and result in the report belongs to that one quarter: the raw-material and utility prices, the wage rates, and the product value that follows from them are all calculated for the period of analysis.
This makes each report a point-in-time picture. A report presents the production economics of its quarter — the product value calculated for the quarter purchased — rather than a running record of how those figures have changed over time. The analysis uses final data only; it contains no forecasts, so every figure describes the quarter analyzed rather than projecting a future one.
What is the IC Index shown beside the period?
The IC Index printed beside the period of analysis is the Intratec plant construction cost index — a construction-cost index that anchors the report's capital-cost basis to its period of analysis. It expresses the relative cost of building a plant at a given time, and is used to scale capital costs from one period to another.
Showing it alongside the period places the report's capital investment on a common time basis, so capital-cost estimates stay comparable across quarters even as construction costs rise or fall.
How are revisions within a quarter handled?
Summary
Each report in a quarterly Series carries a revision number, starting at Rev. 0 for the original release. Its Revision Control section logs every change — across the report's revisions and relative to previous Series — classified as a Fix, an Update, or an Improvement.
Within a quarterly Series, each report carries a revision number, beginning at Rev. 0 for the original release. If a report is revised while still within the same Series, the revision number increments and the change is recorded in the report's Revision Control section.
Revision Control documents the changes made across a report's revisions and relative to previous Series, each classified by type:
- Fix — a correction of errors in a released report, such as typos or wrong descriptions and figures.
- Update — a change introduced with the release of a new Series, such as a technical parameter revised after a more recent publication.
- Improvement — a structural change applied across all reports, improving the accuracy of the estimates or the clarity of their presentation.
The result is a documented trail of what changed between one version of a report and the next.