An Economic Model of the World Oil Market

This paper presents a regional multicommodity economic model of the world oil market. The four sectors of the model are crude production, transportation, refining, and consumption of products. The regions studied are the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia. In the model the exogenous variables include the regional supply and demand equations, the technology of refining, and government policy variables. The scope of these variables gives the model sufficient information to determine the levels of consumption, production, and price for each commodity in each region, the pattern of world trade flows, and the refinery capital structure and output in each region. The consequences of monopolistic behavior -- implemented through the producing country cartel, OPEC -- can be studied through the simulation of the effects of changes in the export tax. Use of this model shows that the price increases for crude oil which occurred in late 1973 are not likely to persist because the largest producing region -- the Persian Gulf and North Africa -- would have the problem of allocating reduced production levels among the individual countries.