For oil related investment appraisal, an accurate description of the evolving uncertainty in the oil price is essential. For example, when using real option theory to value an investment, a density function for the future price of oil is central to the option valuation. The literature on oil pricing offers two views. The arbitrage pricing theory literature for oil suggests geometric Brownian motion and mean reversion models. Empirically driven literature suggests ARMA-GARCH models. A characteristic of the price of oil is its sensitivity to shocks thus the density function of future prices must be able to incorporate the uncertainty due to shocks as well as the underlying volatility of a stable market.
In this study, the accuracy of density forecasts for up to a year ahead is the major criterion for a comparison of a range of models of oil price behaviour, both those proposed in the literature and following from data analysis. The Kullbach Leibler information criterion is used to measure the accuracy of density forecasts.
Using two crude oil price series, Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) representing the US market, we demonstrate that accurate density forecasts are achievable for up to nearly two years ahead using a mixture of two Gaussians innovation process with GARCH and no mean reversion.