The survival of global energy imports and the impact of geopolitical risks

Based on Harmonized System 6-digit code data from 1995 to 2022, this study uses survival analysis to assess the survival of global energy imports, which characterizes resilience. Next, it quantitatively investigates the impact of geopolitical risks in exporting countries on import survival. The key findings are summarized as follows. First, the average length of the 300,971 trade spells is 3.269 years. Remarkably, 80.68 % of these spells have a length that does not exceed 3 years, whereas only 3.98 % persist beyond 18 years in length. Second, the hazard rate of global energy imports reaches 0.573 in the initial year, but it typically decreases as the import duration increases. Compared with other countries, Japan has superior resilience in terms of energy imports, whereas the United States has inferior resilience in this regard. With respect to product categories, global petroleum imports display greater resilience than coal and gas imports do. Third, elevated geopolitical risks in exporting countries significantly increase the hazard rate of global energy imports. Geopolitical risks intensify the hazard rate of global petroleum imports more than that of coal and gas imports. Furthermore, for OECD exporting countries, the enhancing impact of geopolitical risks on the hazard rate of trade disruptions is attenuated. Finally, drawing upon the primary conclusions, policy implications are suggested to increase import resilience and safeguard international energy security.