Sensitivity of crude oil price change to major global factors and to Russian-Ukraine war crisis

Abstract

To assess the elasticity of crude oil price to global factors related to supply of crude oil and the US dollar exchange rate, we employed nonlinear models including flexible least squares (FLS), and maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), in addition to OLS regression mode; using yearly data from 1965 to 2021. Our findings indicate change in oil prices due to 1% change in any of the explanatory variables, as follows: the effect of the US dollar depreciation rate, raise crude oil price/barrel by 71 US cents; and increase in OPEC production, decrease crude oil price by 82 US cents; a decrease in non-OPEC production, raise oil price by 4.78 US$. These results imply that, if a ban imposed on Russian crude oil export, and no increase in OPEC production to compensate Russian oil loss in the international markets, global crude oil price expected to rise by 88 US$ above its level before Russian–Ukraine crisis, meaning that crude oil price expected to rise at 160 US$ pb[1][2]. However, if OPEC members increase their output level by 10 million barrels per day to compensate the Russian oil loss, then global crude oil price expected to stay at 102 US$ pb.