Building a Consensus Forecast for Crude Oil Prices

Skyrocketing fuel prices have stressed the Department of Defense's budget in recent years. In 2001 the DoD spent $4.7 Billion on fuel with the Air Force consuming $ 2.7 Billion (GAO, 2001). These figures have grown over due to these increases as well as the increased flying ours to support the Global War On Terror. In fact, the Fiscal Year 2007 budget has already been increased by $1.1 billion, or 1% of the total budget, to accommodate the increased price of fuel (SAF/FMB, 2006). Current forecasts of this resource have yielded poor results, impairing the DoD's ability to budget this critical expense. Further because the forecast are poor, strategic hedging strategies cannot be effectively employed. Because fuel is a significant portion of aircraft operations and maintenance cost it should be considered in the acquisition of new systems, but the current forecast have not provided the accurate data required. Current forecast available to the DOD were examined, and compared to two econometric structural forecast models. The performance of these structural models was then compared to the benchmark forecasts for energy provided by the Energy Information Agency. A consensus price forecast was constructed from these alternative forecasts.