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Optimal Seasonal Distillate Inventory

Charles Tiplitz

Year: 1986
Volume: Volume 7
Number: Number 3
DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol7-No3-6
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Abstract:
This paper summarizes an investigation of the seasonal inventory of distillate (heating) oil. My object was to determine the extra amount of distillate stock (usually called seasonal stock) to be held at the primary echelon at the beginning of the heating season (about October 31).It began with the usual belief that some traditional amount of heating oil stock be available at the beginning of the heating season. This traditional amount had been based on trends of seasonal stocks adjusted for weather and other demand changes and overlooked such things as optima price theory. Even so, this approach was flawed because seasonal patterns had become so much less severe that conventional, even careful extrapolation produced misleading and inconsistent results.



Volatility Dynamics and Seasonality in Energy Prices: Implications for Crack-Spread Price Risk

Hiroaki Suenaga and Aaron Smith

Year: 2011
Volume: Volume 32
Number: Number 3
DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol32-No3-2
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Abstract:
We examine the volatility dynamics of three major petroleum commodities traded on the NYMEX: crude oil, unleaded gasoline, and heating oil. Using the partially overlapping time-series (POTS) framework of Smith (2005), we model jointly all futures contracts with delivery dates up to a year into the future and extract information from these prices about the persistence of market shocks. The model depicts highly nonlinear volatility dynamics that are consistent with the observed seasonality in demand and storage of the three commodities. Specifically, volatility of the three commodity prices exhibits time-to-delivery effects and substantial seasonality, yet their patterns vary systematically by contract delivery month. The conditional variance and correlation across the three commodities also vary over time. High price volatility of near-delivery contracts and their low correlation with concurrently traded distant contracts imply high short-horizon price risk for an unhedged position in the calendar or crack spread. Price risk at the one-year horizon is much lower than short-horizon risk in all seasons and for all positions, but it is still substantial in magnitude for crack-spread positions. Crack-spread hedgers ignore nearby high-season price risk at their peril, but they would also be remiss to ignore the long horizon.





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