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Closer to One Great Pool? Evidence from Structural Breaks in Oil Price Differentials

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  • Michael D. Plante
  • Grant Strickler

Abstract

We show that the oil market has become closer to "one great pool," in the sense that price differentials between crude oils of different qualities have generally become smaller over time. We document, in particular, that many of these quality-related differentials experienced a major structural break in or around 2008, after which there was a marked reduction in their means and, in many cases, volatilities. Several factors explain these shifts, including a growing ability of the global refinery sector to process lower-quality crude oil and the U.S. shale boom, which has unexpectedly boosted the supply of high-quality crude oil. Differentials between crude oils of similar quality in general did not experience breaks in or around 2008, although we do find evidence of breaks at other times. We also show that these structural breaks can affect tests of stationarity for many price differentials.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael D. Plante & Grant Strickler, 2019. "Closer to One Great Pool? Evidence from Structural Breaks in Oil Price Differentials," Working Papers 1901, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:1901
    DOI: 10.24149/wp1901
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    Cited by:

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    2. Ziliang Yu & Jian Yang & Robert I. Webb, 2023. "Price discovery in China's crude oil futures markets: An emerging Asian benchmark?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(3), pages 297-324, March.
    3. Michail Filippidis & George Filis & Georgios Magkonis & Panagiotis Tzouvanas, 2023. "Evaluating robust determinants of the WTI/Brent oil price differential: A dynamic model averaging analysis," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(6), pages 807-825, June.
    4. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Zhang, Han, 2023. "Volatility forecasting of crude oil futures market: Which structural change-based HAR models have better performance?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Marc Gronwald & Sania Wadud & Kingsley Dogah, 2024. "Informational Efficiency of World Oil Markets: One Great Pool, but with Varying Depth," CESifo Working Paper Series 11017, CESifo.
    6. Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Gabauer, David & Gupta, Rangan, 2023. "Integration and risk transmission in the market for crude oil: New evidence from a time-varying parameter frequency connectedness approach," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    crude oil price differentials; oil; structural breaks; stationarity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General

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