Daniel Huppmann

Crude Oil Market Power—A Shift in Recent Years?

We investigate the exertion of market power in the global crude oil market over the past years. Recognizing the difficulty of identifying market power in the crude oil market by empirical studies, we propose a numerical partial equilibrium model formulated as a mixed complementarity problem. Our approach allows for strategic behavior in a Nash-Cournot market, a Stackelberg leader-follower game, an OPEC oligopoly or cartel, as well as perfect competition. To take account of liquid spot markets, the model specifically includes arbitragers to capture the effect of global crude oil market integration. Our results indicate a market structure shift over the past years. Reported quantities and prices before the 2008 turmoil are close to those derived from a Stackelberg market simulation, with Saudi Arabia acting as Stackelberg leader vis-a`-visa non-cooperativeOPEC oligopoly and a competitive fringe. However, in 2008 and 2009, observed prices are closer to the competitive benchmark. We conclude that OPEC suppliers’ ability to exert market power was reduced in the 2008 turmoil and its aftermath.

National-strategic investment in European power transmission capacity

The transformation of the European energy system requires substantial investment in transmission capacity to facilitate cross-border trade and to efficiently integrate renewable energy sources. However, network planning in the EU is still mainly a national prerogative. In contrast to other studies aiming to identify the pan-European (continental) welfare-optimal transmission expansion, we investigate the impact of national regulators deciding on network investment strategically, with the aim of maximizing consumer surplus and generator profits in their jurisdiction. This reflects the inadequacy of current mechanisms to compensate for welfare re-allocations across national boundaries arising from network upgrades. We propose a three-stage equilibrium model to describe the Nash game between zonal planners (i.e., national governments, regulators, or system operators), each taking into account the impact of network expansion on the electricity spot market and the resulting welfare effects on the constituents within her jurisdiction. Using a four-node sample network, we identify several Nash equilibria of the game between the zonal planners, and illustrate the failure to reach the first-best welfare expansion in the absence of an effective compensation mechanism.

Endogenous production capacity investment in natural gas market equilibrium models

The large-scale natural gas equilibrium model applied in Egging, 2013 combines long-term market equilibria and investments in infrastructure while accounting for market power by certain suppliers. Such models are widely used to simulate market outcomes given different scenarios of demand and supply development, environmental regulations and investment options in natural gas and other resource markets.

Endogenous shifts in OPEC market power - A Stackelberg oligopoly with fringe

This article proposes a two-stage oligopoly model for the crude oil market. In a game of several Stackelberg leaders, market power increases endogenously as the spare capacity of the competitive fringe goes down. This effect is due to the specific cost function characteristics of extractive industries. The model captures the increase of OPEC market power before the financial crisis and its drastic reduction in the subsequent turmoil at the onset of the global recession. The two-stage model better replicates the price path over the years 2003-2011 compared to a standard simultaneous-move, onestage Nash-Cournot model with a fringe. This article also discusses how most large-scale numerical equilibrium models, widely applied in the energy sector, over-simplify and potentially misinterpret market power exertion.

Modelling a Market Stability Reserve in Carbon Markets

We examine under which conditions a cap-and-trade mechanism can deliver a dynamically efficient abatement pathway and contribute to a robust investment framework. For this we develop a numerical dynamic partial-equilibrium model that includes differentiated objective functions of different market participants for holding emission allowances based on their banking strategy. If the surplus of allowances is large, as currently observed in the European Union Emissions Trading System, the equilibrium market outcome can deviate from an efficient abatement pathway and performance of the policy is reduced against a set of key criteria (dynamic efficiency, price credibility, price consistency, and robustness to shocks). The model is applied to assess design options of quantity and price based market stability reserves as discussed in Europe. Both price and quantity based mechanisms can improve the performance of the EU ETS against key criteria.

Network Expansion to Mitigate Market Power: How Increased Integration Fosters Welfare

Lack of transmission capacity hampers the integration of the European electricity market, and thereby precludes reaping the full benefits of competition. We investigate the extent to which transmission grid expansion promotes competition, efficiency and welfare. This work proposes a three-stage model for grid investment: a benevolent planner decides on network upgrades, considering welfare benefits of investments through a reduction of market power exertion by strategic generators. These firms anticipate their impact on market clearing, in particular when lines are congested. To this end, we provide the first model effectively endogenizing the trade-off between costs of grid investment and benefits by reduced market power potential. In a three-node network, we illustrate three distinct strategic effects: firstly, by reducing market power exertion, network expansion can promote welfare beyond pure efficiency gains: optimally accounting for strategic generator behavior can push welfare close to a first-best competitive benchmark. Secondly, network upgrades entail a relative shift of rents from producers to consumers, and thirdly, they may yield suboptimal or even disequilibrium outcomes when strategic behavior is neglected.

A Model for the Global Crude Oil Market Using a Multi-Pool MCP Approach

This paper proposes a partial equilibrium model to describe the global crude oil market. Pricing on the global crude oil market is strongly influenced by price indices such as WTI (USA) and Brent (Northwest Europe). Adapting an approach for pool-based electricity markets, the model captures the particularities of these benchmark price indices and their influence on the market of physical oil. This approach is compared to a model with bilateral trade relations as is traditionally used in models of energy markets. With these two model approaches, we compute the equilibrium solutions for several market power scenarios to investigate whether the multi-pool approach may be better suited than the bilateral trade model to describe the crude oil market. The pool-based approach yields, in general, results closer to observed quantities and prices, with the best fit obtained by the scenario of an OPEC oligopoly. We conclude that the price indices indeed are important on the global crude market in determining the prices and flows, and that OPEC effectively exerts market power, but in a non-cooperative way.

Investigating a CO 2 tax and a nuclear phase out with a multi-fuel market equilibrium model

We present an energy market equilibrium model that captures climate aspects, infrastructure constraints, fuel substitution, and market power ala Cournot in a single framework. The model represents the supply and transportation infrastructure, fuel transformation, power generation, and several demand sectors of fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy. We calibrate the model to market data from the year 2010, with a detailed representation of Europe and the rest of the world represented by continent. We analyze the impact of various regional and global CO2 tax levels and the consequences of a nuclear phase out in Germany. Our results illustrate that positive effects of regional CO2 taxes can be largely undone through carbon leakage and that global CO2 tax levels affect countries differently, dependent on factors such as the fuel mix and idle capacity in power generation. The regional fuel mix in Europe is affected less by a global than a local tax. Finally, Germany is well-connected to surrounding countries, and its potential to increase the use of renewables and import gas and electricity is high enough to compensate for a nuclear phase out.

Mitigating Environmental and Public-Safety Risks of United States Crude-by-Rail Transport

We present a medium-term market equilibrium model of the North American crude oil sector via which we develop a scenario analysis to investigate strategies to mitigate the environmental and public-safety risks from crude-by-rail transportation across the United States. The model captures crude oil movements across rail- roads, pipelines and waterways, while distinguishing between light and heavy crude qualities. We find that restricting rail loads or increasing pipeline capacity from areas driving production will significantly reduce rail movements. However, lifting the United States crude oil export ban in isolation will only increase rail transportation volumes. We show that an integrated policy of targeted rail caps, pipeline investments and lifting the export ban sustainably addresses medium-term crude-by-rail risks in the United States.

An Exact Solution Method for Binary Equilibrium Problems with Compensation and the Power Market Uplift Problem

We propose a novel method to find Nash equilibria in games with binary decision variables by including compensation payments and incentive-compatibility constraints from non-cooperative game theory directly into an optimization framework in lieu of using first order conditions of a linearization, or relaxation of integrality conditions. The reformulation offers a new approach to obtain and interpret dual variables to binary constraints using the benefit or loss from deviation rather than marginal relaxations. The method endogenizes the trade-off between overall (societal) efficiency and compensation payments necessary to align incentives of individual players. We provide existence results and conditions under which this problem can be solved as a mixed-binary linear program. We apply the solution approach to a stylized nodal power-market equilibrium problem with binary on-off decisions. This illustrative example shows that our approach yields an exact solution to the binary Nash game with compensation. We compare different implementations of actual market rules within our model, in particular constraints ensuring non-negative profits (no-loss rule) and restrictions on the compensation payments to non-dispatched generators. We discuss the resulting equilibria in terms of overall welfare, efficiency, and allocational equity.