IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v89y2020ics0140988320301043.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What can be learned from the free destination option in the LNG imbroglio?

Author

Listed:
  • Baba, Amina
  • Creti, Anna
  • Massol, Olivier

Abstract

We examine the profitability of flexible routing by LNG cargoes for a single supplier taking into account uncertainty in the medium-term dynamics of gas markets. First, we model the trajectory of natural gas prices in Asia, Northern America, and Europe using a Threshold Vector AutoRegression representation (TVAR) in which the system's dynamics switches back and forth between high and low regimes of oil price volatility. We then use the generalized impulse response functions (GIRF) obtained from the estimated threshold model to analyze the effects of volatility shocks on the regional gas markets dynamics. Lastly, the valuation of destination flexibility in LNG supplies is conducted using a real option approach. We generate a sample of possible future regional price trajectories using Monte Carlo simulations of our empirical model and determine for each trajectory the optimal shipping decisions and their profitability. Our results portend a substantial source of profit for the industry and reveal future movements of vessels. We discuss the conditional impact of destination flexibility on the globalization of natural gas markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Baba, Amina & Creti, Anna & Massol, Olivier, 2020. "What can be learned from the free destination option in the LNG imbroglio?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:89:y:2020:i:c:s0140988320301043
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104764
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988320301043
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104764?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    2. Williamson, Oliver E, 1979. "Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractural Relations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 233-261, October.
    3. repec:bla:jecsur:v:13:y:1999:i:5:p:551-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:clg:wpaper:1999-04 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Anne Neumann, 2009. "Linking Natural Gas Markets - Is LNG Doing its Job?," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(1_suppl), pages 187-200, June.
    6. David J. Ramberg and John E. Parsons, 2012. "The Weak Tie Between Natural Gas and Oil Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    7. Siliverstovs, Boriss & L'Hegaret, Guillaume & Neumann, Anne & von Hirschhausen, Christian, 2005. "International market integration for natural gas? A cointegration analysis of prices in Europe, North America and Japan," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 603-615, July.
    8. Christian Hirschhausen & Anne Neumann, 2008. "Long-Term Contracts and Asset Specificity Revisited: An Empirical Analysis of Producer–Importer Relations in the Natural Gas Industry," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 32(2), pages 131-143, March.
    9. Bruce Hansen, 1999. "Testing for Linearity," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 551-576, December.
    10. Neuhoff, K. & von Hirschhausen, C., 2005. "Long-term vs. Short-term Contracts; A European perspective on natural gas," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0539, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Ben S. Bernanke, 1983. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Cyclical Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(1), pages 85-106.
    12. John Elder & Apostolos Serletis, 2010. "Oil Price Uncertainty," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(6), pages 1137-1159, September.
    13. Gallant, A Ronald & Rossi, Peter E & Tauchen, George, 1993. "Nonlinear Dynamic Structures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 871-907, July.
    14. Hansen, Bruce E, 1996. "Inference When a Nuisance Parameter Is Not Identified under the Null Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 413-430, March.
    15. Peter R. Hartley, 2015. "The Future of Long-term LNG Contracts," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    16. Erdős, Péter, 2012. "Have oil and gas prices got separated?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 707-718.
    17. Glachant, Jean-Michel & Hallack, Michelle, 2009. "Take-or-pay contract robustness: A three step story told by the Brazil-Bolivia gas case?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 651-657, February.
    18. Gray, Jo Anna, 1978. "On Indexation and Contract Length," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(1), pages 1-18, February.
    19. Keith J. Crocker & Scott E. Masten, 1988. "Mitigating Contractual Hazards: Unilateral Options and Contract Length," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(3), pages 327-343, Autumn.
    20. Koop, Gary & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Potter, Simon M., 1996. "Impulse response analysis in nonlinear multivariate models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 119-147, September.
    21. Radchenko, Stanislav, 2005. "Oil price volatility and the asymmetric response of gasoline prices to oil price increases and decreases," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 708-730, September.
    22. Lo, Ming Chien & Zivot, Eric, 2001. "Threshold Cointegration And Nonlinear Adjustment To The Law Of One Price," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 533-576, September.
    23. Hubbard, R Glenn & Weiner, Robert J, 1986. "Regulation and Long-term Contracting in U.S. Natural Gas Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 71-79, September.
    24. Apostolos Serletis & John Herbert, 2007. "The Message in North American Energy Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Quantitative And Empirical Analysis Of Energy Markets, chapter 13, pages 156-171, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    25. Chen, Shiu-Sheng & Hsu, Kai-Wei, 2012. "Reverse globalization: Does high oil price volatility discourage international trade?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1634-1643.
    26. Massol, Olivier & Tchung-Ming, Stéphane, 2010. "Cooperation among liquefied natural gas suppliers: Is rationalization the sole objective?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 933-947, July.
    27. Ritz, Robert A., 2014. "Price discrimination and limits to arbitrage: An analysis of global LNG markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 324-332.
    28. Stephen P.A. Brown & Mine K. Yücel, 2008. "What Drives Natural Gas Prices?," The Energy Journal, , vol. 29(2), pages 45-60, April.
    29. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5372 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Kao, Chung-Wei & Wan, Jer-Yuh, 2009. "Information transmission and market interactions across the Atlantic -- an empirical study on the natural gas market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 152-161, January.
    31. Jarque, Carlos M. & Bera, Anil K., 1980. "Efficient tests for normality, homoscedasticity and serial independence of regression residuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 255-259.
    32. Don Bredin & John Elder & Stilianos Fountas, 2010. "The Effects of Uncertainty about Oil Prices in G-7," Working Papers 200840, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    33. Barnes, Ryan & Bosworth, Ryan, 2015. "LNG is linking regional natural gas markets: Evidence from the gravity model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 11-17.
    34. Perron, Pierre, 1990. "Testing for a Unit Root in a Time Series with a Changing Mean," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(2), pages 153-162, April.
    35. Apostolos Serletis, 2007. "Is There an East-West Split in North American Natural Gas Markets?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Quantitative And Empirical Analysis Of Energy Markets, chapter 6, pages 59-72, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    36. W. David Walls, 1994. "Price Convergence Across Natural Gas Fields and City Markets," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 37-48.
    37. Anne Neumann & Boriss Siliverstovs & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2006. "Convergence of European spot market prices for natural gas? A real-time analysis of market integration using the Kalman Filter," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(11), pages 727-732.
    38. Zhang, Dayong & Shi, Min & Shi, Xunpeng, 2018. "Oil indexation, market fundamentals, and natural gas prices: An investigation of the Asian premium in natural gas trade," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 33-41.
    39. Shi, Xunpeng & Padinjare Variam, Hari Malamakkavu, 2016. "Gas and LNG trading hubs, hub indexation and destination flexibility in East Asia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 587-596.
    40. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    41. Pirrong, Stephen Craig, 1993. "Contracting Practices in Bulk Shipping Markets: A Transactions Cost Explanation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 937-976, October.
    42. Jeff Fleming & Chris Kirby & Barbara Ostdiek, 2001. "The Economic Value of Volatility Timing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 329-352, February.
    43. Sophia Ruester, 2009. "Changing Contract Structures in the International Liquefied Natural Gas Market : A First Empirical Analysis," Revue d'économie industrielle, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(3), pages 89-112.
    44. Brigida, Matthew, 2014. "The switching relationship between natural gas and crude oil prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 48-55.
    45. Hansen,B.E., 1999. "Testing for linearity," Working papers 7, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    46. Mariano Matilla-García, 2007. "Nonlinear Dynamics in Energy Futures," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 7-30.
    47. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    48. Nathan S. Balke, 2000. "Credit and Economic Activity: Credit Regimes and Nonlinear Propagation of Shocks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 344-349, May.
    49. Ewing, Bradley T. & Malik, Farooq & Ozfidan, Ozkan, 2002. "Volatility transmission in the oil and natural gas markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 525-538, November.
    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. Yu Yong Ung & Park Sung Ho & Jung Dong Ho & Lee Chang Hee, 2020. "Improving Liquefied Natural Gas Bunkering in Korea through the Chinese and Japanese Experiences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-15, November.
    2. Feng, Meihong & Zou, Donghang & Hafeez, Muhammad, 2024. "Mineral resource volatility and green growth: the role of technological development, environmental policy stringency, and trade openness," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121592, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Feng, Meihong & Zou, Donghang & Hafeez, Muhammad, 2024. "Mineral resource volatility and green growth: The role of technological development, environmental policy stringency, and trade openness," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    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. Amina Baba & Anna Creti & Olivier Massol, 2020. "What can we Learn from the Free Destination Option in the LNG Imbroglio ?," Working Papers hal-03181028, HAL.
    2. Chi Kong Chyong, 2019. "European Natural Gas Markets: Taking Stock and Looking Forward," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 55(1), pages 89-109, August.
    3. Shi, Xunpeng & Shen, Yifan, 2021. "Macroeconomic uncertainty and natural gas prices: Revisiting the Asian Premium," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    4. Chiappini, Raphaël & Jégourel, Yves & Raymond, Paul, 2019. "Towards a worldwide integrated market? New evidence on the dynamics of U.S., European and Asian natural gas prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 545-565.
    5. Camilo Alberto Cárdenas-Hurtado & Aaron Levi Garavito-Acosta & Jorge Hernán Toro-Córdoba, 2018. "Asymmetric Effects of Terms of Trade Shocks on Tradable and Non-tradable Investment Rates: The Colombian Case," Borradores de Economia 1043, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    6. Kyle Olsen & James Mjelde & David Bessler, 2015. "Price formulation and the law of one price in internationally linked markets: an examination of the natural gas markets in the USA and Canada," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(1), pages 117-142, January.
    7. Xiaofen Tan & Yongjiao Ma, 2017. "The impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on international commodity prices," China Finance Review International, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(2), pages 163-184, May.
    8. Van Robays, Ine, 2012. "Macroeconomic uncertainty and the impact of oil shocks," Working Paper Series 1479, European Central Bank.
    9. Chi Kong Chyong & David M Reiner & Dhruvak Aggarwal, 2023. "Market Power and Long-term Gas Contracts: The Case of Gazprom in Central and Eastern European Gas Markets," The Energy Journal, , vol. 44(1), pages 55-74, January.
    10. Ine Van Robays, 2016. "Macroeconomic Uncertainty and Oil Price Volatility," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(5), pages 671-693, October.
    11. Zhang, Dayong & Shi, Min & Shi, Xunpeng, 2018. "Oil indexation, market fundamentals, and natural gas prices: An investigation of the Asian premium in natural gas trade," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 33-41.
    12. Joëts, Marc & Mignon, Valérie & Razafindrabe, Tovonony, 2017. "Does the volatility of commodity prices reflect macroeconomic uncertainty?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 313-326.
    13. Frank Asche, Atle Oglend, and Petter Osmundsen, 2017. "Modeling UK Natural Gas Prices when Gas Prices Periodically Decouple from the Oil Price," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    14. Gatfaoui, Hayette, 2016. "Linking the gas and oil markets with the stock market: Investigating the U.S. relationship," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 5-16.
    15. repec:wsr:wpaper:y:2019:i:189 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Ekaterina Dukhanina & Olivier Massol, 2017. "Spatial Integration of Natural Gas Markets A Litterature Review," Working Papers hal-03187890, HAL.
    17. Chyong, C-K., 2019. "Challenges to the Future of European Single Market in Natural Gas," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1918, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Wang, Tiantian & Qu, Wan & Zhang, Dayong & Ji, Qiang & Wu, Fei, 2022. "Time-varying determinants of China's liquefied natural gas import price: A dynamic model averaging approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    19. Mensi, Walid & Rehman, Mobeen Ur & Maitra, Debasish & Al-Yahyaee, Khamis Hamed & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2021. "Oil, natural gas and BRICS stock markets: Evidence of systemic risks and co-movements in the time-frequency domain," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    20. Kirstin Hubrich & Timo Teräsvirta, 2013. "Thresholds and Smooth Transitions in Vector Autoregressive Models," CREATES Research Papers 2013-18, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    21. Rozina Shaheen, 2020. "Credit market conditions and impact of monetary policy in a developing economy context," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 409-425, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    LNG arbitrage; Destination flexibility option; Volatility; TVAR; Monte Carlo simulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General

    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:eee:eneeco:v:89:y:2020:i:c:s0140988320301043. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    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.