Analysis of influencing factors of crude oil price;
(A) the commodity nature of crude oil-the relationship between supply and demand determines the trend of oil prices.
The long-term trend of crude oil price is mainly determined by the fundamental factors of crude oil supply and demand. Because crude oil is a non-renewable resource and the short-term supply elasticity of crude oil is small, the most important factor affecting crude oil price is the world economic development that determines the demand for crude oil without the discovery of new large-scale oil fields and the emergence of major technological innovations.
(b) Crude oil inventories-expectations affecting oil price fluctuations
1. What is crude oil inventory?
Crude oil inventory is divided into commercial inventory and strategic reserve. The main purpose of commercial inventory is to ensure the efficient operation of enterprises and prevent the potential shortage of crude oil supply under the seasonal fluctuation of crude oil demand. The main purpose of the national strategic reserve is to deal with the crude oil crisis.
Crude oil inventories in various countries play a role in regulating the balance between supply and demand in the international crude oil market, and the change of its quantity is directly related to the change of the difference between supply and demand in the world crude oil market. In the international crude oil market, the weekly crude oil inventory and demand data published by the American Crude Oil Association (API) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy have become the basis for many crude oil companies to judge the short-term supply and demand situation of the international crude oil market and conduct practical operations.
2. Crude oil inventories and oil prices
After the publication of crude oil inventory and demand data, WTI oil price chooses upward or downward fluctuation direction, which directly affects the trend of Brent oil in London and Singapore, and drives the oil price to fluctuate upward or downward. The influence of crude oil inventory on oil price is complicated. When the futures price is much higher than the spot price, crude oil companies tend to increase commercial inventory and reduce current supply, thus stimulating the spot price to rise and narrowing the futures spot price difference. When the futures price is lower than the spot price, crude oil companies tend to reduce the commercial inventory and increase the current supply, which leads to the decline of the spot price and a reasonable price difference with the futures price.
By the end of 2009 1 1, the commercial crude oil stocks in OECD countries had reached 2.738 billion barrels, an increase of 5 1 10,000 barrels compared with the same period of last year, which could meet the demand for crude oil in OECD countries for 60 days and exceeded the upper limit of the average level in recent five years. According to us energy information administration's forecast, in 20 10, the commercial crude oil inventories in OECD countries will still be relatively abundant, and higher inventories will restrain the oil price increase to some extent.
(C) the dollar exchange rate factor-the actual level of oil prices.
Since international crude oil transactions are mainly priced in US dollars, the exchange rate of US dollars is also one of the important factors that affect the rise and fall of crude oil prices. When the dollar appreciates, the international prices of raw materials such as gold, crude oil and copper are under downward pressure. On the contrary, when the dollar depreciates, the price of such goods will rise.
From 2002 to July 20 10, crude oil prices rose steadily due to the sharp depreciation of the US dollar against major currencies in the world. The interest rate adjustment and exchange rate policy adopted by the United States to alleviate the subprime mortgage crisis directly led to the flood of liquidity, which led to global inflation, the continued depreciation of the US dollar, which led to the skyrocketing prices of bulk commodities including crude oil, and the oil price reached a new high under the impetus of the loose monetary policy of the United States, reaching an all-time high of 147 US dollars in July 2008. In the context of the financial crisis hitting the real economy hard, oil prices quickly fell to $35. Therefore, there is a typical negative correlation between the dollar and oil prices, and a weak dollar will support the rise of oil prices.
However, the impact of the dollar exchange rate factor on oil prices is only temporary and not significant enough. Statistical analysis shows that the correlation coefficient between WTI crude oil futures price and US dollar index is -0.22, which shows that the role of US dollar exchange rate relative to the supply and demand of crude oil in oil price fluctuation is very small.
(d) World economic development-promoting the phased adjustment of oil prices.
The growth of global economy will affect the price of crude oil by changing the demand of crude oil market. There is a strong positive correlation between economic growth and oil demand growth, and the proportional relationship between them is generally expressed by the elastic coefficient of crude oil consumption to GDP.
However, the change of economic growth rate can not only explain the rise of oil prices in the medium and long term, but also the decline of oil prices caused by short-term economic recession can be reflected in the changes of economic data. Figure 4-2 shows that during the decade from 1999 to 2008, the overall trend of oil prices was upward, and there were at least three obvious staged corrections during this period. One is the decline in demand caused by the brief recession of the US economy after the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble in 2000. From the comparative changes of global economic growth rate and international oil price, we can clearly see the influence of global economic downturn on oil price. The second time was caused by the short-term recovery of idle capacity in 2006, which eased the market pressure in a short time. The third deep oil price adjustment since mid-2008 is closely related to the economic crisis.
In 20 10, the world economy will recover slowly, and the international oil price will show a steady upward trend. If the prospect of world economic recovery is better than expected, confidence in the economic and financial markets will be restored, inflationary pressure will increase, and the dollar will continue to weaken sharply, then the upward trend of international oil prices will be more obvious. If a new financial shock breaks out, the recovery of the world economy is blocked and a second economic recession occurs, in order to prevent the stagflation dollar from strengthening under the guidance of policies, then the international oil price operation platform may move down.
(e) Unexpected events and climatic conditions-making oil price fluctuations more uncertain.
Crude oil has not only the attributes of general commodities, but also the attributes of strategic materials, and its price and supply are greatly influenced by political forces and situations. In recent years, with the development of political multipolarization, economic globalization and production internationalization, competing for crude oil resources and controlling the crude oil market have become important reasons for the oil market turmoil and soaring oil prices. The tense geopolitics has strengthened the expectation of supply contraction in the international crude oil market. Geopolitical factors such as terrorist attacks on crude oil facilities, strikes by crude oil workers and political turmoil in oil-producing countries will all have an impact on international oil prices. At present, terrorist attacks in Iraq are frequent and crude oil facilities are often damaged. The US-led anti-terrorism activities in Afghanistan are "more anti-terrorism". The situation in Afghanistan has not been effectively controlled so far, but has escalated and gradually spread to Pakistan, Iran and other places. Iran is an important oil producer in the world. With the unresolved nuclear issue and the chaos caused by "terrorist activities", the "terrorist premium" of international crude oil will also increase day by day and be further amplified through speculation. Local political turmoil or war will stimulate oil prices to rise.
Climate will affect the supply and demand of crude oil. For example, abnormal weather may cause damage to crude oil production facilities, lead to supply interruption, and thus affect international oil prices, but its impact on the entire international oil price is short-term. In addition, many countries in Europe and America use crude oil as heating fuel, so when the climate changes abnormally, it will cause short-term changes in fuel oil demand, thus driving the price changes of crude oil and other petroleum products.
(vi) International crude oil speculation-exacerbating short-term fluctuations in oil prices.
At present, in the international crude oil futures market, the operation of international speculative capital is a factor that cannot be ignored. Speculation and market expectation in the crude oil market often increase the fluctuation of crude oil prices. The influence of speculative factors in the international crude oil market on crude oil prices is 10%-20%. Especially when some unexpected events occur, a large amount of speculative capital will operate in the international crude oil futures market, which will aggravate the fluctuation of international crude oil prices.
In the period of low oil prices, the scale of speculative funds is relatively small, and the ability to amplify the role of international events in the formation of crude oil futures prices is limited. With the gradual rise of crude oil prices, the crude oil futures market has attracted more and more speculative funds, and the scale of speculative funds has become larger and larger, and the "herd effect" has become more and more obvious. The release of any sensitive data and the occurrence of events, such as changes in crude oil inventories, oil field explosions, geopolitical relations, workers' strikes, climate change, etc., will suddenly amplify its impact and aggravate oil price fluctuations under the action of large-scale speculative funds.
(vii) Geopolitical factors
Oil is a scarce non-renewable resource and an indispensable strategic resource for national survival and development, which has a great impact on national economy, military affairs and security. The change of international crude oil market price is often influenced by geopolitical factors of oil-producing countries.
Geopolitics and the political situation of oil-producing countries have two main influences on oil prices. First, geopolitical conflicts have led to a real decline in crude oil supply; The second is that geopolitical conflicts have caused the international crude oil market to worry about the future supply reduction, but the actual supply has not decreased. Judging from the current geopolitical situation, the focus of geopolitics in the future is mainly Iraq and Iran in the Middle East. In 2006, the Iranian nuclear crisis caused the international oil market to worry about the interruption of Iranian crude oil supply, which led to the continuous rise of international oil prices in 2006.
As the most important organization of petroleum exporting countries in the world, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has powerful oil pricing power in the world. In order to safeguard the interests of member countries, the organization implements a strict production ceiling system for member countries. Whenever the international oil price falls, the member countries of the organization will implement a production reduction policy to maintain high oil prices and obtain high profits.
(viii) People's expectations-psychological factors lead to oil price fluctuations.
In recent years, the expectation of dollar depreciation and inflation has led a large number of investment funds to choose long-term investment in crude oil to avoid inflation risks. In a short period of time, a large amount of speculative capital entered the crude oil market and used various expectations or themes to speculate, which amplified the upward trend of oil prices. With the help of economic fluctuations or some unexpected events, speculative funds guide and use people's expectations to speculate in the spot and futures markets. Expected changes and speculation interact, and spot prices and futures prices push each other, which makes oil prices appear similar to "overshoot" after breaking through the rise or fall of key prices, which intensifies the fluctuation of crude oil prices.
(9) Interest rate factor
In the standard non-renewable resource model, the increase of interest rate will lead to the decrease of future mining value relative to current mining value, so the mining path will be convex to the present and far away from the future. High interest rate will reduce capital investment, leading to a smaller initial mining scale; High interest rates will also increase the capital cost of alternative technologies, which will lead to a decline in mining speed, which in turn will lead to an increase in crude oil prices.
Various factors affecting oil prices are intertwined and work together, making it more difficult for people to accurately predict oil prices. Except the main factor of supply and demand, other factors are random and uncertain, and the intensity presented in different periods is not the same. The change of one or more factors will affect the international oil price. It can be predicted from the changes in the international oil supply and demand structure that oil prices will fluctuate at a high level for a long time, while changes in some random factors will cause large fluctuations in oil prices in the short term.