Some Questions on Crude Oil PricingI was just thinking about what impacts the futures prices of crude oil. Here is my attempt to list the factors in order of impact on futures prices:
1. Supply vs demand - where is the best place to find this information? What affects these going forward?
2. Current and near term inventories - API ans EIA only consider US inventories, where should one look for a complete world picture? Perhaps China, India, Iran, Iraq data is not available or credible but may actually make up the major storage of crude oil workd wide
3. Governments impact on pricing - royalties, fuel economy mandates, cardon emission reduction mandates, etc
4. Air pollution can cause a reduction on ICE usage in heavy populated urban areas
5. Hostile actions between countries may affect import/ export trade in and production/demand for crude oil
6 Subsitutes for crude oil and products made from crude oil such as Natural Gas, Hydrogen and perhaps Ammonia which can be made by splitting water with electricity generated from solar wind or hydro power.
There are undoubtly many more factors. How does one take them all into account to understand future pricing?