Price and Expenditure Measures of Petroleum Products: a Comparison
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Petroleum ‘ Prices Prices and Expenditures and Expenditures Price and expenditure measures of petroleum products: a comparison Price changes in petroleum products are closely correlated among the three price programs of the Bureau of Labor Statistics; changes in the BLS petroleum-product CPI also correlate with changes in consumer spending on those products, as measured by the Consumer Expenditure Survey Abby L. Duly, olitical events in oil-producing countries, tional Price Program (IPP), which measures import Jeffrey A. Harris, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and and export prices; the Producer Price Index (PPI), Ara M. increasing global demand for petroleum which measures prices received by domestic pro- Khatchadourian, P products have all contributed to sharp increases in ducers; the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which Rozi T. Ulics, and recent years in prices of crude oil and of petroleum measures consumer prices paid out of pocket; and Melissa C. Wolter products derived from crude oil. From January 2000 the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE), which to July 2006, the average price for a gallon of measures out-of-pocket consumer expenditures. unleaded regular gasoline in the United States Chart 1 illustrates the high correlation among the increased 130.5 percent.1 Personal consumption three price indexes. (Two different PPI’s are shown.) expenditures on gasoline rose from $175.7 billion Each program has a different scope, measurement to $287.3 billion from 2000 to 2005.2 Rising prices goal, and methodology for collecting and compiling and increasing expenditures are a concern for data related to crude oil and petroleum products, consumers, business leaders, and Federal policy- and the differences among the programs must be makers. As a result, reliable information on the pric- understood in order to properly interpret and com- es and costs of crude oil and petroleum products is pare the movements among the respective indexes. more vital than ever in making decisions at all levels A description of each program’s measures of petro- of the economy. leum product prices and expenditures follows. The The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, the Bureau) appendix presents an exhibit summarizing the pro- conducts price and consumer expenditure surveys gram methodologies. that measure both changes in prices of, and expenditures for, petroleum products throughout Measurement of traded-goods inflation: the IPP’s the various levels of the economy. This article import and export price indexes. The IPP produces introduces the programs that carry out these indexes for import and export goods and services. surveys, describes the petroleum data compiled These indexes measure price changes on the basis by those programs, explains the methodology of the actual transaction prices of specifically Abby L. Duly is an underlying the various crude-oil and gasoline economist formerly in defined items and services coming into and leaving the Office of Prices surveys, and provides historical comparisons of the country. Published IPP indexes for crude oil and Living Conditions, price data across the BLS programs. Bureau of Labor and refined petroleum products reflect three classi- Statistics, and Jeffrey A. fication systems: the Harmonized Tariff System of Harris, Ara M. Khatchadourian, Rozi Price and expenditure programs the United States, the Bureau of Economic Analysis T. Ulics, and Melissa C. End Use classification system, and the North Amer- Wolter are economists NAICS in the same office. E- The Bureau conducts three price surveys and a ican Industry Classification System ( .) These mail: [email protected] survey of consumer expenditures: the Interna- indexes are used, among other things, to deflate 56 Monthly Labor Review December 2006 Chart 1. Selected BLS price indexes, January 2000–December 2005 Index Index (2000 = 100) (2000 = 100) PPI for gasoline CPI for gasoline (all types) IPP crude-petroleum import prices PPI for crude petroleum various foreign trade statistics produced by the U.S. Census imported into the United States. Because of its broad scope, Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. EIA–856 data are more comprehensive than data that can be Although the IPP calculates indexes for all petroleum prod- obtained from a sample of importers. EIA–856 data also en- ucts, only some of these products meet the program’s dollar- compass transactions for the entire calendar month, so that, in value-of-trade threshold for public release. The IPP publishes contrast to price indexes for goods and services, for which the indexes solely for products with an annual dollar value of trade reference period is the first week of each month, the IPP crude- for exports of at least $3.0 billion or a dollar value of trade for oil index is composed of transaction data received over the imports of at least $3.0 billion. Because U.S. crude-oil exports no entire month. longer exceed $3.0 billion per year, the IPP does not publish One limitation of using the EIA–856 survey, however, is export indexes for crude oil. By contrast, crude-oil imports have that most of the transaction data are not available from the a trade dollar value that greatly exceeds the IPP threshold. Indeed, Department of Energy in time for the first published estimate of on the basis of a dollar value of more than $131 billion in 2004, the crude-oil import index. Instead, the complete set of EIA–856 imported crude oil accounts for 9.35 percent of the overall IPP data for a given month is available on a delayed basis. For import index, with all other imported petroleum products together example, most of the June 2006 prices were not available until accounting for 3.45 percent of the weight of the import index. July or August 2006. To correct for this limitation, the IPP employs Among the import and export price indexes the IPP produces two different estimation procedures to calculate its crude-oil for other petroleum products are indexes for gasoline and import index: a procedure for calculating the preliminary and first distillates. revised index and a procedure for calculating two subsequent Unlike most of the product indexes in the IPP, which reflect revisions of the index. price data collected directly from importers and exporters, the To calculate the preliminary and first revised index when import crude-oil index is based primarily on monthly transaction the EIA–856 data are incomplete, the IPP uses a regression data obtained from the Department of Energy’s Energy Infor- model based on the incomplete EIA–856 data to estimate the mation Administration (EIA) Form–856 survey.3 This survey percent change in the price for crude oil. This regression collects data on prices and quantities of virtually all crude oil model’s estimates are much closer to the final estimate of the Monthly Labor Review December 2006 57 Petroleum Prices and Expenditures monthly percent change in the crude-oil import index than are Measurement of production inflation: the Producer Price the estimates derived from merely aggregating the incomplete Index. The PPI publishes various monthly price indexes for crude EIA–856 data. oil and refined petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel The two subsequent revisions are calculated directly from fuel, and home heating oil. The indexes are based on prices the EIA–856 data with the use of a modified Laspeyres index collected directly from domestic producers and are calculated formula based upon fixed item and index weights calculated with the use of a modified Laspeyres index formula. The prices each year by the IPP.4 The weights are lagged 2 years. For for crude oil are generally location-specific net transaction example, in 2006, the weights were calculated from 2004 trade prices,9 whereas the prices provided for refined petroleum values. In January 2007, the IPP will start using 2005 weights. products are primarily national averages of net transaction prices At the item level, the IPP calculates the weight for each type of for the particular commodity. Crude-oil prices are received from imported crude oil, or “crude stream,” in the EIA–856 survey.5 domestic producers at various wells within the United States, Each observation in the monthly index then represents a including offshore operations. Prices for refined petroleum tanker load of a particular crude stream that arrives in the products are not received from a specific location, but rather are United States. taken as national averages. For each revision, a more complete set of EIA–856 data Before prices are collected, however, and in a manner similar to the becomes available for use in the monthly index calculation. IPP process for direct collection, a sample of establishments is ran- Therefore, for the two subsequent revisions, these data are domly drawn, and each establishment selected is visited by a BLS simply aggregated by the IPP into the crude-oil import index. representative, who attempts to persuade the establishment to To achieve this aggregation, the IPP calculates the weighted participate in the PPI survey. If the establishment agrees to participate, average price for each crude stream by summing products of a certain number of its products are selected to be priced for the prices and quantities for all transactions for a crude stream survey. Any particular product that an establishment produces has a and then dividing the result by the sum of the quantities. probability of selection proportional to the share of the estab- These weighted average prices are then combined into the lishment’s revenue from sales of the product. Once specific products overall index, which, as mentioned, is weighted by the annual are selected, establishments send monthly price updates on those trade value from 2 years earlier. As with all IPP indexes, the products to the PPI. The updates reflect prices on the Tuesday of the final crude-oil index number is released 3 months after the week containing the 13th of the month.10 preliminary index is first published.