Impact of crude prices on retail prices – A time series analysis

Abstract

The UK has emerged as one of the largest producers of petroleum in the world. A significant amount of petroleum is used for fulfilling the energy demand within the country. However, the country witnessed a different trend from 2015. This is mainly due to the increase in imports of petroleum in order to meet domestic needs. To this, there is a need to identify the impact of changes exist in petrol and crude oil prices in the UK. In this context, the researcher has undertaken primary research to derive conclusions which are case specific and can comply with the research aim.  The study used secondary data for the year 2015-2018 and conducted multivariate time series analysis. A series of tests including unit root, ARIMA, and co-integration tests were used to derive the results. The study found that there was an asymmetric relationship between the movements of prices of crude oil with respect to retail fuel prices in the long run. However, the study is not without limitations which are represented at the end of the study following with its future scope.