Research on the Volatility Characteristics and Evolutionary Mechanism of the 'Asian Premium' for Natural Gas

Abstract

The spread in the main international natural gas markets shows the characteristics of violent fluctuation, frequent mutation, and periodic evolution, which poses a great challenge to the safety and sustainable development of natural gas in China. Firstly, this paper used the CEEMDAN model to decompose and reconstruct natural gas “Asian premium”. According to the evolution law of each subsequence, “Asian premium” was decomposed into four parts: speculative, geographical, energy security, and fundamental premium. Secondly, this paper adopted the BMA method to extract the main factors and used the TVP-SV-VAR model to characterize the nonlinear relationship. The results showed that the speculative motivation of suppliers and the cross-regional transportation cost of natural gas has become the main reasons for the fluctuation, and the influence of oil prices on “Asian premium” was gradually reduced. The impulse response results showed that when the financial crisis hit in 2008, the impact of energy security and economic fundamentals on the “Asian premium” was more obvious. In case of supply shortage, financial speculation and geographical factors played a more significant role in the "Asian premium" of natural gas. This paper provides an important reference for the price mechanism reform of China's natural gas market.

Keywords: natural gas, Asian premium, Speculative premium, Energy security premium, BMA, TVP-SV-VAR