Yan Lingyu(2012) “Analysis of the International Oil Price Fluctuations and Its Influencing

Factors” Oil is one of the important strategic energy to guarantee the development of modern
industry and economy, and is also an important resource, which is scrambled by each interest
group in the world. Oil price fluctuation is always regarded as the barometer of worldwide
economy, whose each change would be the hot issue to be concerned and discussed gen- erally
in political and economic circle in every country. This paper systematically reviewed the
historical path of inter- national oil price fluctuation, analyzed comprehensively all factors,
which effect the oil price fluctuation and proposed the countermeasures and advices to respond
the international oil price fluctuation. Through the analysis, this paper ar- gues that the
influencing factors are various, and with the development of the world’s economy, the types of
these in- fluencing factors would increase and the influencing intensity, which presented by the
various factors that affect the oil price, would also different in different historical
periods.Demand in the international oil market is considered as the most direct and most obvious
factor that affect the international oil price, and normally, imbalance of supply and demand
would easily become the powderhose of big fluctuation of international oil price.

Buyuksahin and Harris (2011) ascertained that the rise in crude oil prices and the increased
number of financial participants in the crude oil futures market from 2000 to 2008 have led to
allegations that “speculators” exert influence on crude oil prices. Oil futures contracts are
financial instruments that gain and lose value as the price of oil changes. Futures traders buy the
price of oil (and gain or lose money as the price varies) without necessarily providing or holding
a barrel of the physical commodity. Nevertheless, the sum of their transactions affects the futures
market price, which is publicly accessible to all market participants. In effect, many spot trades
take place at the futures price or at the futures price corrected by some factor. Both physical
(spot) and futures trades affect the price. It is thus very hard to unravel the price influence of
trades by producers and commercial users of oil from those of financial speculators who try to
profit by anticipating price trends. Therefore, using oil futures as an indicator of speculative
activity has its merits and demerits. On the one hand, there is no feasible way of isolating the
speculative component in net open positions, unless it is possible to separate commercial from
noncommercial positions. This occurs because noncommercial traders (i.e. retail investors) are
foreseen as the speculators in the market, while commercial traders are related to hedging
positions to protect their oil demand.