Glossary: A-C
Definitions of Intratec methodology and product terms from A to C.
A
- Accuracy Index (AI)
- A single indicator of a price model's reliability for one evaluation timeframe, combining Mean Absolute Percentage Accuracy and Directional Accuracy into a weighted 0–100% value; computed separately over the last 3, 6, and 12 months of available consolidated prices, and consolidated into the Model Performance Score.
- Additional Capital Requirements
- One-time startup-related capital in Commodity Production Costs reports, covering needs such as labor training, commercialization costs, startup inefficiency, unscheduled plant modifications, and land and site development.
- Adjusted Construction Cost Factor
- The Construction Cost Factor adjusted for institutional execution risk and logistics efficiency, reflecting the total installed-cost exposure of a capital project.
- Adjusted Labor Cost
- Total Employer Cost weighted by the applicable labor productivity factor, yielding the effective labor cost per standardized unit of output.
- Assessment
- Intratec's published value for a price or cost, produced by the applicable methodology; a price assessment is normalized to its assessment basis and labeled as Final, Preliminary, or Forecast.
- Assessment Basis
- The specification a value refers to: location, grade/quality, and delivery terms.
- Assessment Catalog
- The authoritative coverage list for an Intratec product or assessment family, identifying the products, commodities, locations, processes, reports, or other assessed items available in the relevant subscription or library.
- Average Energy Price
- The representative unit cost of energy across a country's economy, calculated in the Energy Prices & Markets program as a consumption-weighted average of the country's most relevant energy price assessments; a synthetic indicator for cross-country comparison, not a price paid by any single consumer. See how it's calculated.
B
- Bare Equipment (BEQ)
- The base equipment cost used in Commodity Production Costs plant-cost breakdowns, before installation, construction disciplines, indirect costs, and contingencies are added.
- Base Pillar
- One of the 8 pillars that capture structural cost and market dimensions shared by every commodity family, measured the same way regardless of industry sector: Manufacturing Labor Costs, Construction Labor Costs, Capital & Construction Costs, Energy & Utilities Costs, Logistics & Infrastructure, Freight Costs, Macroeconomic Environment, and Domestic Tax Environment.
- Base Pillars Score
- The equal-weighted average of the 8 Base pillar scores in an Industry Economics & Competitiveness assessment; because it reflects country-wide structural conditions, it is shared across all commodity families and does not vary by sector.
- Biofuels
- Renewable fuels derived from organic materials (biomass) such as plants, agricultural residues, animal fats, and waste; alternatives to fossil fuels in transportation, heating, and electricity generation, spanning liquid, gaseous, and solid forms.
- Biomass And Waste
- Organic materials from plants, animals, or waste streams that can be converted into biofuels or biogas or burned directly for energy; key sources include agricultural residues, forestry waste, municipal solid waste, animal manure, and dedicated energy crops.
- Block Flow Diagram (BFD)
- A block-level process representation used in Commodity Production Costs reports, showing functional units and major input/output streams rather than detailed equipment-by-equipment engineering.
- Business Environment Factor
- A multiplier reflecting institutional friction and execution risk for capital projects; higher values indicate greater friction relative to the most business-friendly countries.
- By-Product Credits
- Deductions applied in Intratec cost and price calculations when a process generates saleable by-products or co-products, reducing net raw-material cost, operating cost, or product value; also referred to as Co-product Credit.
C
- CAPEX (Capital Expenditures)
- Capital expenditures for building or expanding an industrial plant; in Commodity Production Costs reports, CAPEX is represented through capital investment components such as plant cost, owner's cost, working capital, and additional capital requirements.
- Capital Investment
- Total capital required to bring an industrial plant into operation; in Commodity Production Costs reports, it is grouped into fixed capital, working capital, and additional capital requirements.
- Cash Cost
- The recurring out-of-pocket operating cost before depreciation, corporate overhead, and return on capital; in Commodity Production Costs reports, operating cash cost equals operating variable costs plus operating fixed costs.
- Cfr (Cost And Freight)
- An Incoterm: price includes cost and freight to the destination port, excluding insurance.
- Cif (Cost, Insurance And Freight)
- An Incoterm: price includes cost, insurance, and freight to the destination port.
- Class 4 Budgetary Estimate
- A conceptual-level cost estimate used for investment screening and preliminary feasibility decisions; Commodity Production Costs reports are Class 4 budgetary estimates, not process design packages, FEED packages, or construction-ready engineering.
- Coal Products
- Processed coal used in power generation (thermal coal) and steel production (metallurgical coal); one of the five maritime freight categories in Intratec energy assessments — bulk commodities typically transported by rail, barge, or ship, requiring specialized handling.
- Commodity Family
- One of the seven industry groups covered by the Industry Economics & Competitiveness program (e.g. Polymers, Fertilizers); called Industry Family in the program's report glossary.
- Commodity Production Costs
- The Intratec product family of techno-economic reports that estimate capital costs, operating costs, and product value for commodity manufacturing processes using a consistent conceptual-assessment methodology.
- Compiled Price
- A price calculated from publicly available price series: the raw data are statistically validated to remove anomalies and outliers, then averaged across the month — typically from daily or weekly closing prices; one of the pricing bases used in Intratec price assessments.
- Component
- A thematic grouping of one or more normalized indicators within a pillar (for example, an Energy Pricing Component or a Maritime Freight Component); components are weighted and aggregated to produce the pillar score.
- Consolidated Price
- A price value settled on verified official statistics, serving as the benchmark against which Intratec price-model accuracy is evaluated; consolidated figures carry the Final (Fi) status label.
- Constant Price Model (NaïVe Model)
- The baseline forecasting model that assumes prices remain unchanged from the latest known value; used in Intratec forecast evaluation as the reference for measuring how much predictive value a forecasting model adds.
- Construction Cost Factor
- The combined material and construction-labor cost of a capital project, before adjustment for business-environment and logistics risk.
- Consumption
- The energy directly used by end users, plus non-energy uses such as fossil fuels employed as chemical raw materials; in the Energy Prices & Markets energy balance, consumption differs from demand because part of the energy is lost during conversion.
- Contract Price
- A price for supply under contract terms, as opposed to spot.
- Corporate Bond Yield
- The prevailing borrowing cost for investment-grade firms, reflecting the affordability of long-term debt for industrial projects.
- Corporate Overhead
- Head-office and corporate support costs included in Commodity Production Costs product-value calculations, covering areas such as administration, information technology, marketing, and research and development.
- Crude Oil
- A liquid fossil fuel extracted from underground reservoirs and refined into essential products such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.