• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.499-517
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• 2017

The purpose of this article is to show profit margin hedging can be an optimal strategy in crude oil purchasing. This study theoretically analyzes profit margin hedging strategy is optimal in crude oil purchasing using expected target utility function and conducts simulations to show if the profit margin hedging is profitable. In addition, this study tests existence of mean reversion of crude oil futures prices to confirm the theory that profit margin hedging is more profitable than other strategies, such as always hedging or buying at expiration with spot price, if futures prices are mean reverting. The simulation results show that the expected utility of profit margin hedging higher than other strategies. Although we cannot find any evidence that crude oil futures prices follow mean reverting process, we can conclude that profit margin hedging can be optimal strategy in crude oil purchasing based on theoretical proof and simulation results.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.139-158
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• 2009

With the sample of Middle East crude oil imported to South Korea, this study empirically analyzes the effectiveness of the risk management strategies using derivatives such as futures and options. Assuming the hedging period of one to twelve months, it considers a spot purchasing strategy, 1 : 1 futures hedge strategy, OLS-based minimum-variance futures hedge strategy, buying call option strategy, and collar transaction strategy. According to the ex-ante result, using the derivatives of futures or options makes lower the procurement costs when the crude oil prices is increasing. With the hedging period less than or equal to six months, the hedging strategy using futures turns out to be superior in terms of procurement cost reduction and hedging effectiveness improvement. In contrast, the hedging strategies of buying call option and collar transaction would generate better results when the hedging program last over six months.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.33-53
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• 2010

When purchase prices of a raw material fluctuate over time, the total purchasing cost is mainly affected by reordering time. Existing researches focus on deciding the right time when the demand for each period is replenished at the lowest cost. However, the decision is based on expected future prices which usually turn out to include some error. This discrepancy between expected prices and actual prices deteriorates the performance of inventory models dealing with fluctuating purchase prices. In this paper, we propose a new inventory model which incorporates not only cost but also risk into making up a replenishment schedule to meet each period's demand. For each replenishment schedule, the risk is defined to be the variance of its total cost. By introducing the risk into the objective function, the variability of the total cost can be mitigated, and eventually more stable replenishment schedule will be obtained. According to experimental results from crude oil inventory management, the proposed model showed better performance over other models in respect of variability and cost.