Forecasting OPEC oil price: a comparison of parametric stochastic models

Most academic papers on oil price forecasting have frequently focused on the use of WTI and European Brent oil price series with little focus on other equally important international oil price benchmarks such as the OPEC Reference Basket (ORB). The ORB is a weighted average of 11-member countries crude streams weighted according to production and exports to the main markets. This paper compares the forecasting accuracy of four stochastic processes and four univariate random walk models using daily data of OPEC Reference Basket series. The study finds that the random walk univariate model outperforms the other stochastic processes. An element of uncertainty was introduced into the point estimates by deriving probability distribution that describes the possible price paths on a given day and their likelihood of occurrence. This will help decision makers, traders and analysts to have a better understanding of the possible daily prices that could occur. JEL Classification Numbers: E64; C22; Q30 Keywords: Oil Price Forecasting, Probability Distributions, and Forecast Evaluation Statistics, Brownian Motion with Mean Reversion process, GARCH Model

Alaska Fuel Price Projections 2014-2040

The Alaska Fuel Price Projections are developed annually for the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) for the purpose of estimating the potential costs and benefits of renewable energy projects. Project developers submit applications to AEA for grants awarded under the Alaska Renewable Energy Fund (REF) program. These fuel price projections are used to evaluate the economic feasibility of project applications; economic feasibility is only one of many factors of the project evaluation process. Economists at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) have completed seven previous Alaska Fuel Price Projections since 2008 (all available at: http://www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/). In this report we present the methodology for the most recent fuel prices projection. In addition to their use for the REF review, ISER researchers use the projections for other economic research and energy project evaluations. The fuel price projections also fulfill an important need for price information and are used by many stakeholders in addition to AEA. As a result of their broad use among the public, we expanded what used to be cursory notes on methodology. Our intent is to provide more detailed information to the report’s readers and users of the fuel price projections.Alaska Energy AuthorityBackground / Projection vs. Forecast / Data Sources / Projections / References / Appendix A. Projection methodolog

Will oil prices decline over the long run?

At present, oil markets appear to be behaving in a fashion similar to that in the late 1970s and early 1980s when oil prices rose sharply over an extended period. Furthermore, like at that time, analysts are split on whether such increases will persist or reverse, and if so by how much. The present paper argues that the similarities between the two episodes are not as strong as they might appear at first sight, and that the likelihood of sharp reversals in prices is not particularly great. There are a number of reasons in support of the view that it is unlikely that the first two decades of this century will mimic the last two decades of the previous century. First, oil demand is likely to grow significantly in line with strong economic growth in non-OECD countries. Second, on the supply side, OPEC is likely to enhance its control over markets over the next two decades, as supply increases in newly opened areas will only partially offset declining rates of production in other geologically mature non-OPEC oil regions. Moreover, while concerns about climate change will spur global efforts to reduce carbon emissions, these efforts are not expected to reduce oil demand. Finally, although there is much talk about alternative fuels, few of these are economically viable at the prices currently envisioned, and given the structural impediments, there is a reduced likelihood that the market will be able to generate sufficient quantities of these alternative fuels over the forecast horizon. The above factors imply that oil prices are likely to continue to exceed the USD 70 to USD 90 range over the long term. JEL Classification: Q41, Q42, Q43Oil prices, Oil supply, Oil demand, Alternative fuels, Climate Change Policy

The significance of deepwater oil drilling for the US energy security: the case of the Gulf of Mexico

This study seeks to quantify and model the significance of the deepwater oil development for domestic US energy supplies in the short-term. It explores the significance and potential contribution deepwater oil supply from the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) can make in providing energy security to the US. The output of this research demonstrates the growth in deepwater oil production and how this latter relates to total US oil production over the next 10 years; and therefore the role it can play in providing energy security to the USA. The literature offers commercial and academic debate on this topic. The research model analyses current available data and make sensible assumptions on the likely future growth of deepwater oil production in the GoM based on a number of scenarios. Our results support the high/best case and suggest that deepwater oil from the GoM can significantly provide energy security to the US on the short term. However, on the long term and in order to maintain its energy security, the US needs to develop and use renewable sources of energy

Oil price volatility and new evidence from news and Twitter

In this paper, we develop semantic-based sentiment indices through relevant news and Twitter feeds for oil market using a state-of-the-art natural language processing technique. We investigate the predictability of crude oil price volatility using the novel sentiment indices through a hybrid structure consisting of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity and bidirectional long short-term memory models. Findings show that media sentiment considerably enhances forecasting quality and the proposed framework outperforms existing benchmark models. More importantly, we compare the predictive power of news stories with Twitter feeds and document the superiority of the news sentiment index over the counterpart. This is an important contribution as this paper is the first study that compares the impact of regular press with that of social media, as an alternative informative medium, on oil market dynamics

The impact of oil price fluctuations on stock markets in developed and emerging economies

This study examines the response of stock markets to oil price volatilities in Japan, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia by applying the generalized impulse response and variance decomposition analyses to the monthly data spanning 1986:01 – 2011:02. The results suggest that the reaction of stock markets to oil price shocks varies significantly across markets. Specifically, the stock market responds positively in Japan while negatively in Malaysia; the signal in Singapore and South Korea is unclear. We find that the stock market inefficiency, among others, appeared to have slowed the responses of the stock market to aggregate shocks such as oil price surges.oil price fluctuation, stock return, exchange rate, emerging market, VAR model.

Empirical Essays on Energy Economics

The main part of this thesis consists of three distinct essays that empirically analyze economic issues related to energy markets in the United States and Europe. The first chapter provides an introduction and discusses the motivation for the different analyses pursued in this thesis. The second chapter examines attention effects in the market for hybrid vehicles. We show that local media coverage, gasoline price changes and unprecedented record gasoline prices have a significant impact on the consumers' attention. As attention is not directly observable, we analyze online search behavior as a proxy for the revealed consumer attention. Our study is based on a unique weekly panel dataset for 19 metropolitan areas in the US. Additionally, we use monthly state-level panel data to show that the adoption rate of hybrid vehicles is robustly related to our measure of attention. Our results show that the consumers' attention fluctuates strongly and systematically. The third chapter shows how the effect of fuel prices varies with the level of electricity demand. It analyzes the relationship between daily prices of electricity, natural gas and carbon emission allowances with a semiparametric varying smooth coefficient cointegration model. This model is used to analyze the market impact of the nuclear moratorium by the German Government in March 2011. Futures prices of electricity, natural gas and emission allowances are used to show that the market efficiently accounts for the suspended capacity and correctly expects that several nuclear plants will not be switched on after the moratorium. In the fourth chapter, we develop a structural vector autoregressive model (VAR) for the German natural gas market. In particular, we illustrate the usefulness of our approach by disentangling the effects of different fundamental influences during four specific events: The financial crisis starting in 2008, the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute in January 2009, the Libyan civil war in 2011 as well as the cold spell and Russian supply interruption in February 2012. Our results show that the natural gas price is affected by temperature, storage and supply shortfalls in the short term, while the long-term development is closely tied to crude oil and coal prices

Towards realisation of stable oil prices: an empirical analysis of the impact of OPEC's oil price band/stabilisation policies.

This dissertation contributes to the literature on the role of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in (de)stabilising oil prices by identifying and critically investigating a gap in the extant literature with respect to OPECs actions in the oil markets, vis-à-vis its stabilisation policies. Two research questions were addressed, namely: to what extent could OPEC have stabilised global oil prices within a particular target price band; and to what extent were OPECs stabilisation policies rendered ineffective by market forces? Consistent with the positivists research paradigm, unrestricted vector autoregressive (VAR) models were applied to monthly data over the 13 year period 2000-2012 on a range of relevant variables identified from the literature. Granger causality tests, impulse response functions (IRFs) and forecast error variance decompositions (FEVDs) were obtained from the VAR estimates to enable a critical analysis to be undertaken of the complex dynamics at play between OPEC and other key market players. The major contributions of the study are: it establishes that OPEC failed over the period 2000-2012 to operate as an effective cartel for controlling oil prices; it provides an innovative contribution to research methodology by utilising VAR impulse response functions and forecast error variance decompositions to describe the complex interactions between various players with diverse objectives in the markets; it contributes to the OPEC cartel literature in a novel way; it should enable regulators to better understand the political, social and economic interaction between key players in the oil markets, thereby increasing chances of policy embracement by all parties; it also makes a theoretical contribution by employing a framework based on target (price) zone theory; and finally it establishes that oil price band policy has the potential to be an important element of price stability in the oil market