On the basis of the international crude oil price formation model in the previous section, the following is a quantitative simulation analysis of several main factors affecting the international crude oil price.

4.3.3. 1 Simulation results without considering the openness of oil importing countries.

Then, the influences of the changes of the world economic activity level (real GDP), OECD oil reserves and OPEC crude oil output on the international crude oil price are simulated and analyzed respectively.

Scenario 1 Influence of single factor change on international crude oil price. That is to say, when other factors remain unchanged, the world economy (real GDP), the crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the oil reserves of the OECD change respectively, and the international crude oil price changes with these factors. Tables 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9 are the simulation results.

Table 4.7 Influence unit of single factor change of world real GDP:%

Table 4.8 Single factor change of crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries:%

sequential

Table 4.9 Single factor change of OECD oil reserves:%

The influence of two factors on the international crude oil price. That is to say, when other factors remain unchanged, the world's real GDP, OPEC crude oil production and OECD oil reserves have changed to varying degrees, and the international crude oil price has also changed. The simulation results are shown in Table 4. 10 and Table 4. 1 1.

Table 4. 10 Influence unit of OPEC crude oil output and OECD oil reserves change:%

Table 4. 1 1 Influence unit of OPEC crude oil output and world real GDP change:%

Scenario 3 The influence of three factors on the change of international crude oil price. That is, when the level of world economic activity (real GDP), the oil reserves of OECD countries and the crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries change in different degrees at the same time, the international crude oil price changes (Table 4. 12).

Table 4. 12 Influence unit of three factors:%

4.3.3.2 simulation results considering the openness of oil importing countries

Similar to the above simulation, the following simulation analyzes the impact of changes in the world economy (real GDP), OECD oil reserves, the openness of oil importing countries and the crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on the international crude oil price.

Scenario 1 the influence of single factor change in the openness of oil importing countries on international crude oil prices. Table 4. 13 reflects the changes of international crude oil prices when the world economy (real GDP), OECD oil reserves and OPEC crude oil output remain unchanged and the openness of oil importing countries changes to varying degrees.

Table 4. 13 Single-factor change of openness of oil-importing countries Influencing unit:%

The influence of two factors on the international crude oil price. Table 4. 14 reflects the changes of international crude oil prices when the world economic activity level (real GDP) and the oil reserves of OECD countries remain unchanged, and the crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the openness of oil importing countries change to varying degrees.

Table 4. 14 OPEC crude oil output and openness of oil importing countries:%

Scenario 3 The influence of three factors on the change of international crude oil price. Table 4. 15 reflects the changes of international crude oil prices when the oil reserves of OECD countries remain unchanged, while the level of world economic activity (real GDP), crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the openness of oil importing countries change to varying degrees.

Table 4. 15 Influence unit of three factors change:%

Scenario 4 The influence of four factors on the international crude oil price. The change of international crude oil price when the level of world economic activity (GDP), oil reserves of OECD countries, crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the openness of oil importing countries change at the same time. Table 4. 16 reflects the change of international crude oil price when OPEC crude oil production is reduced by 4%, the world economy is in different development conditions, the openness of importing countries is further improved, and OECD countries use different amounts of oil reserves to cope with OPEC crude oil production reduction.

Table 4. 16 Influence unit of four factors:%

According to the analysis of the four main influencing factors of international crude oil price in this section (world real GDP, OECD oil reserves, OPEC crude oil output and the openness of oil importing countries), we can draw the following conclusions:

1) From a single factor, the output of crude oil from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has the greatest impact on the international crude oil price, followed by the level of world economic activity (real GDP), the openness of oil importing countries and the oil reserves of OECD. The world's real GDP, the openness of oil importing countries and OECD oil reserves have a positive impact on the international crude oil price, while the crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has a negative impact on the international crude oil price.

2) The influence degree of each influencing factor on the international crude oil price is asymmetric. The increase of world real GDP, the opening of oil importing countries and OECD oil reserves have led to the increase of international crude oil prices, which is greater than the same degree of decline of these factors. However, the decline in OPEC crude oil production leads to a larger increase in international crude oil prices than the same increase in OPEC crude oil production.

3) From a single factor, regardless of the openness of oil importing countries, if the world's real GDP grows at a rate of 2% every year, and the output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the oil reserves of OECD countries remain unchanged, the international crude oil price will increase at a rate of about 6. 18% every year. If the OECD oil reserves change unilaterally, the OECD throws out 10% reserves, and the international crude oil price drops by 28.7%; The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries unilaterally cut production by 4%, and the international crude oil price will rise by 58.8%. Considering the openness of oil importing countries, the influence of each single factor on the international crude oil price decreases slightly, and the openness of oil importing countries has a significant influence on the international crude oil price. If the openness of oil importing countries increases by 1%, that is, the proportion of the world's total oil imports and exports to the world's real GDP increases by 1%, the international crude oil price will rise by 5%.

4) From the perspective of two factors, the combined effect of the two factors may weaken or strengthen the influence of a single factor on the international crude oil price. For example, OECD oil reserves have a certain inhibitory effect on OPEC's production reduction. For example, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut production by 4%. Under other conditions unchanged, the OECD can basically eliminate the impact of OPEC's cut production on international crude oil prices as long as it uses 14% reserves.

5) Three or four factors make the problem more complicated. The combined action of three factors or four factors makes the role of a single factor even less obvious. The elasticity of each factor to crude oil price, the dynamics and direction of each factor (up or down) are all important reasons that affect the final change degree of crude oil price. For example, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut production by 4%, while the world's real GDP increased by 2%. At this time, in order to maintain the stability of international crude oil prices, OECD needs to use 18.2% reserves instead of 14% reserves to eliminate the influence of OPEC output and world real GDP changes on international crude oil prices.

6) Under the same circumstances, the increase of the openness of oil importing countries will increase the international crude oil price. Under the condition of single factor (that is, other factors remain unchanged), the openness of oil importing countries will increase by 1%, and the international crude oil price will rise by 5%. In the case of multiple factors, such as OPEC's production reduction of 4% and the world's real GDP growth rate of 2%, OECD can keep the international crude oil price stable as long as it uses 18.2% reserves, but if the openness of oil importing countries increases at this time 1%, the international crude oil price will rise by 8.6%.

Generally speaking, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has certain ability to regulate the international crude oil market. However, there are many factors that affect the international crude oil price, each of which has great variables, such as the change of world economic activity level (real GDP), and the relationship between the factors that affect the international crude oil price is also very complicated, which limits the ability of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to influence the international crude oil price. For example, unilaterally (that is, all other factors remain unchanged), a 4% reduction in OPEC production will lead to a 58.8% increase in international crude oil prices, but in fact this situation will basically not happen, because many other factors are changing at the same time as OPEC production cuts, and these factors will either aggravate or weaken the impact of OPEC production cuts on international crude oil prices.

The above analysis of the international crude oil price only considers four main influencing factors: the crude oil output of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil reserves of OECD countries, the level of world economic activity (real GDP) and the openness of oil importing countries. However, as pointed out earlier, there are many factors that affect the price of crude oil, including not only various market factors considered in this section, but also some uncertain non-market factors, such as politics and religion, military wars, accidents, financial speculation and even market psychology. Therefore, the simulation results of this section can be said to be the results under ideal environmental conditions, and it is difficult to directly compare the results of this section with the actual situation. However, this does not mean that the results in this section have no practical significance. In fact, like any commodity, although the formation of crude oil product price is very complicated, according to microeconomic theory, the influence of these non-market factors is generally temporary and short-lived; In the long run, the formation of international crude oil prices is still mainly determined by market factors, that is, supply and demand factors in the international oil market. In other words, the conclusion of this section has certain practical significance in the long run.

In addition, because OPEC only provides the rest of the international crude oil demand and the crude oil output of non-OPEC countries, many of these factors are beyond the control of OPEC. The comprehensive effect of these factors makes the change of crude oil market price more complicated, which also weakens and limits the role of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in international crude oil prices to some extent.

Finally, the influence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on the international crude oil price is not only reflected in the change of output, as a special force in the international oil market, any news about the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may become an important factor in the change of oil price (Figure 4. 18). The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is indeed an important influence force in the international oil market. Its influence is not limited to the actual actions it takes, but its greater influence may come from its influence on the psychology of the main body of the oil market.

Figure 4. 18 Oil price fluctuation and the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

(According to http://www.biee.org/downloads/conferences/W Eston, Christensen 20paper.pdf)

In short, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has experienced ups and downs for more than 40 years since 1960 was founded. How they will develop in the future is not only related to themselves, such as whether their oil policy is reasonable, whether they can effectively solve their internal conflicts of interest, whether they can effectively implement production policies and so on. It is also related to many uncertain factors that you can't control. Although the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries faces many problems, especially the external and future uncertainties have a great influence on the role of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. However, in today's global oil price stage, in addition to the production behavior of major oil consuming countries and non-OPEC countries, financial speculators in the oil futures market are an important force to attack OPEC. Since the mid-1980s, it is these financial speculators in the futures market who are attacking the influence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on oil prices. For example, after the "9. 1 1" incident in the United States, in just 12 trading days, the price plummeted from the high of 3 1.05 USD/barrel to 20.70 USD/barrel, with a drop of 10.35 USD/barrel; The biggest drop in a single day on September 25th was $3.74/barrel. Before and after, the relationship between supply and demand in the world oil market did not change fundamentally, but a large number of speculative funds used the market to worry about the psychological expectation of the accelerated decline of the American economy after the "9. 1 1" incident, and malicious speculation led to large fluctuations in crude oil prices. According to the news from Reuters, from the perspective of the international oil futures trading market, the real demand is less than 1/3 of the total market, and the rest are artificially created "virtual oil" by arbitrageurs. It is estimated that oil speculative capital has reached the scale of more than 500 billion US dollars. Therefore, the futures market and pure speculators greatly affect the speed and degree of price changes. How to solve these problems is a major issue facing the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

In the past, after the international oil price soared or plummeted, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries often adjusted the output of its member countries to stabilize the market. Because it takes some time from decision to actual implementation to increase or decrease output; Plans often fail to keep up with changes, which often greatly reduces the regulatory role of OPEC policies on the market. Although a series of events, such as the outbreak of the Iraq war, had a great impact on the international oil market and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the organization took this opportunity to adopt the policy of "preparing for a rainy day and taking the initiative to attack". Pollnow Yusgiantoro, chairman of the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Indonesian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, once said that it is better to send a signal as early as possible to get the best result than to react hastily after the worst happens. Although OPEC's passive-to-active approach may help improve its influence in the international oil market, if OPEC misjudges the oil market, it may aggravate the fluctuation of international crude oil prices.

From the above research results, we can definitely say that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has played an important role in the international oil price stage in the past and now, and it can be predicted that it will continue to play its role in the future; However, it is still difficult to predict whether this role can achieve the expected purpose of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and we will wait and see.