Selected methods of securing the refining sector against crude oil price fluctuations

The contemporary refining sector has to contend with many types of risks, among which price risk is considered to be the foremost. Moreover, refineries define it as a commodity risk and identify it with both opportunities and threats carried by changes in prices of crude oil and products of refining. In this paper, we present selected methods that may protect enterprises in the refinery sector from the consequences of rapid fluctuations in oil prices. The focus is mostly on the opportunities offered by commodity options. Skillful combination of the above-mentioned derivatives in optional strategies enables hedging of the purchase prices of raw materials within fixed price ranges. In order to examine the effectiveness of using these strategies, the parameters of the commodity options from the New York Mercantile Exchange are utilized. The analysis of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices covers the period from June 2014 to March 2018. Three different strategies from the vertical spread group have been taken into consideration, namely, short butterfly spread, long strip, and long strap. European call and put options with different strike prices have been used in the construction of these strategies. The comparison of the results achieved in the research indicates that there is an answer to the question of strategies that ought to be used at various levels of oil price changes. Moreover, the empirical results reveal that during rapid fluctuations in crude oil price (5%, the strategies turned out to be an ineffective protection. The best results with rapid fluctuations in oil prices were obtained in the long strip strategy. Additionally, increasing the exercise price of options used in this strategy improved the mean for the final results. The higher exercise prices of the options also resulted in greater sensitivity of the effectiveness of the long strip strategy on the level of changes in oil prices. For the strategy variant with the At The Money (ATM)+10% options, the Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the final result and the WTI oil prices in the analyzed period amounted to –0.91. For variants with the ATM+5% and ATM options, the value of this coefficient was –0.85 and –0.71, respectively. It is also worth noting that the consequence of increasing strike price in the long strip strategy was higher standard deviations for the final results. The empirical results might be useful information for oil refineries. It can help refineries to create a more successful price risk management policy, which may thus protect the companies from the negative consequences of unfavorable crude oil price movements