IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gue/guelph/2018-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pipeline capacity and the dynamics of Alberta crude oil price spreads

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory Galay

    (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph, Guelph ON Canada)

  • Henry Thille

    (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph, Guelph ON Canada)

Abstract

From 2011 until the end of 2014, a larger than normal price spread emerged between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Western Canadian Select (WCS). This led many participants in Canada’s energy sector to advocate for the expansion of Canada’s crude oil pipeline system as they believed that excess supply could not be moved from production regions in Northern Alberta to those markets that would yield the highest return. This article considers the impact constrained transportation capacity has on the price spread between WCS and other world prices such as WTI. A Markov-switching model is used to identify regimes associated with binding/non-binding pipeline capacity. Our results confirm the predictions of models of spatial arbitrage under capacity constraints. When there is sufficient transportation capacity the price spreads reflect transport costs (includes fees, insurance, etc.) plus any premium for the quality difference between the crude oils compared. However, during periods of tight capacity the spread becomes more volatile and on average exceeds transport costs plus the quality premium. We compare our results to newly available pipeline data and find that periods of tight capacity as identified through the price data are substantially fewer than that suggested by the pipeline capacity data.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory Galay & Henry Thille, 2018. "Pipeline capacity and the dynamics of Alberta crude oil price spreads," Working Papers 1804, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:gue:guelph:2018-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uoguelph.ca/economics/repec/workingpapers/2018/2018-04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cremer, Helmuth & Gasmi, Farid & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 2003. "Access to Pipelines in Competitive Gas Markets," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 5-33, July.
    2. Shawkat M. Hammoudeh & Bradley T. Ewing & Mark A. Thompson, 2008. "Threshold Cointegration Analysis of Crude Oil Benchmarks," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 79-96.
    3. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Zhang, Lu, 2015. "Interpreting the crude oil price movements: Evidence from the Markov regime switching model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 96-109.
    4. Galay, Gregory, 2018. "The impact of spatial price differences on oil sands investments," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 170-184.
    5. Garcia, Rene & Perron, Pierre, 1996. "An Analysis of the Real Interest Rate under Regime Shifts," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 111-125, February.
    6. Fattouh, Bassam, 2010. "The dynamics of crude oil price differentials," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 334-342, March.
    7. Angus Deaton & Guy Laroque, 1992. "On the Behaviour of Commodity Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23.
    8. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R., 1998. "Testing for mean reversion in heteroskedastic data II: Autoregression tests based on Gibbs-sampling-augmented randomization1," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 385-396, October.
    9. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R. & Startz, Richard, 1998. "Testing for mean reversion in heteroskedastic data based on Gibbs-sampling-augmented randomization1," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 131-154, June.
    10. Kuck, Konstantin & Schweikert, Karsten, 2017. "A Markov regime-switching model of crude oil market integration," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 16-31.
    11. Engel, Charles & Hamilton, James D, 1990. "Long Swings in the Dollar: Are They in the Data and Do Markets Know It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 689-713, September.
    12. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    13. Andrew Coleman, 2009. "A Model of Spatial Arbitrage with Transport Capacity Constraints and Endogenous Transport Prices," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(1), pages 42-56.
    14. Reboredo, Juan C., 2011. "How do crude oil prices co-move?: A copula approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 948-955, September.
    15. Shaun McRae, 2017. "Crude Oil Price Differentials and Pipeline Infrastructure," NBER Working Papers 24170, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Deaton, Angus & Laroque, Guy, 1996. "Competitive Storage and Commodity Price Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(5), pages 896-923, October.
    17. Goldfeld, Stephen M. & Quandt, Richard E., 1973. "A Markov model for switching regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-15, March.
    18. Kim, Chang-Jin, 1994. "Dynamic linear models with Markov-switching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 1-22.
    19. Garcia, Rene, 1998. "Asymptotic Null Distribution of the Likelihood Ratio Test in Markov Switching Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 763-788, August.
    20. Mann, Janelle & Sephton, Peter, 2016. "Global relationships across crude oil benchmarks," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-5.
    21. Avalos, Roger & Fitzgerald, Timothy & Rucker, Randal R., 2016. "Measuring the effects of natural gas pipeline constraints on regional pricing and market integration," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 217-231.
    22. Matthew Oliver & Charles Mason & David Finnoff, 2014. "Pipeline congestion and basis differentials," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 261-291, December.
    23. Galay, Gregory, 2019. "Are crude oil markets cointegrated? Testing the co-movement of weekly crude oil spot prices," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    24. Cremer, Helmuth & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 2002. "Competition in gas markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 928-935, May.
    25. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "State-Space Models with Regime Switching: Classical and Gibbs-Sampling Approaches with Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112388, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brandon Schaufele & Jennifer Winter, 2023. "Production Controls in Heavy Oil and Bitumen Markets: Surplus Transfer Due to Alberta’s Curtailment Policy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-24, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kim, Chang-Jin & Morley, James C. & Nelson, Charles R., 2001. "Does an intertemporal tradeoff between risk and return explain mean reversion in stock prices?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 403-426, September.
    2. Chung-Ming Kuan, 2013. "Markov switching model (in Russian)," Quantile, Quantile, issue 11, pages 13-40, December.
    3. Kuck, Konstantin & Schweikert, Karsten, 2017. "A Markov regime-switching model of crude oil market integration," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 16-31.
    4. Omokolade Akinsomi & Mehmet Balcilar & Rıza Demirer & Rangan Gupta, 2017. "The effect of gold market speculation on REIT returns in South Africa: a behavioral perspective," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 41(4), pages 774-793, October.
    5. Onour, Ibrahim, 2021. "The impact of the covid-19 pandemic on major Asian stock markets: evidence of decoupling effects," MPRA Paper 115994, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Smith, Aaron & Naik, Prasad A. & Tsai, Chih-Ling, 2006. "Markov-switching model selection using Kullback-Leibler divergence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 553-577, October.
    7. Chang, Yoosoon & Choi, Yongok & Park, Joon Y., 2017. "A new approach to model regime switching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 196(1), pages 127-143.
    8. Silvestro Di Sanzo, 2009. "Testing for linearity in Markov switching models: a bootstrap approach," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 18(2), pages 153-168, July.
    9. Wesche, Katrin, 2003. "Monetary Policy in Europe: Evidence from Time-Varying Taylor Rules," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 21/2003, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    10. Shaw, Charles, 2018. "Regime-Switching And Levy Jump Dynamics In Option-Adjusted Spreads," MPRA Paper 94154, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 May 2019.
    11. Duan, Kun & Ren, Xiaohang & Wen, Fenghua & Chen, Jinyu, 2023. "Evolution of the information transmission between Chinese and international oil markets: A quantile-based framework," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    12. Sean D. Campbell, 2002. "Specification Testing and Semiparametric Estimation of Regime Switching Models: An Examination of the US Short Term Interest Rate," Working Papers 2002-26, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    13. Huang, Yu-Lieh, 2012. "Measuring business cycles: A temporal disaggregation model with regime switching," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 283-290.
    14. Frommel, Michael & MacDonald, Ronald & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2005. "Markov switching regimes in a monetary exchange rate model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 485-502, May.
    15. Massimo Guidolin & Allan Timmermann, 2006. "An econometric model of nonlinear dynamics in the joint distribution of stock and bond returns," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 1-22, January.
    16. Luong, Phat V., 2023. "Crude oil pipeline constraints: A tale of two shales," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    17. Laurent Calvet & Adlai Fisher, 2003. "Regime-Switching and the Estimation of Multifractal Processes," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1999, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    18. Massimo Guidolin, 2011. "Markov Switching Models in Empirical Finance," Advances in Econometrics, in: Missing Data Methods: Time-Series Methods and Applications, pages 1-86, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    19. Assenmacher-Wesche, Katrin, 2006. "Estimating Central Banks' preferences from a time-varying empirical reaction function," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1951-1974, November.
    20. Chowdhury, Kushal Banik & Garg, Bhavesh, 2023. "Fresh evidence on the oil-stock interactions under heterogeneous market conditions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crude oil prices; spatial pricing; pipeline congestion; Markov-switching autoregression;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gue:guelph:2018-04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stephen Kosempel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/degueca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.