It is abbreviated OPEC, which stands for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which is a cartel composed of some of the world’s top oil producers. Because of the vastness of OPEC member states, it is able to influence control over global oil prices, making it a significant political and economic player.
For energy-dependent economies, oil imports account for a considerable portion of their trade balance. The volatility of oil prices is known to have a significant impact on the relative value of currencies in open economies with floating exchange rates.
Changes in the price of oil have a considerable impact on the demand and supply of foreign currency because oil contracts are in US dollars. For oil-producing countries, the research has shown this correlation between oil prices and the exchange rate, as well as for oil-importing countries.
Petrodollars as a currency system
The term “petrodollar” refers to the use of the US dollar, which is used as the primary currency for oil exports from OECD members and many other oil-exporting nations. A country must first convert its currency to the US dollar to pay for oil from OPEC countries.
The agreement between Saudi Arabia and the United States led to the creation of the system in the 1970s.
The reinvestment of US dollars received as payment for oil exports is known as petrodollar recycling. In order to keep the petrodollar in circulation, exporters buy US bonds and equities. Additionally, it aids oil exporters in the development of their own economies and international investment.
When oil exporters use the dollar as their currency, they are subjected to currency volatility. They lose money if the US dollar depreciates.
The price of oil and the value of the US dollar
When the dollar rises and falls, it causes an immediate rebalancing between the greenback and a large number of currency crosses. There is less correlation between these movements in countries that lack major crude oil reserves and more correlation in those with significant reserves.
The US economy is relatively large compared to its trade counterparts, which helps to maintain US balance sheets. While the energy sector contributes significantly to the GDP of the United States, America’s economic variety lessens the country’s reliance on just one sector.
For investors, OPEC monthly reports might provide insights into the supply/demand balance. Crude may benefit from forecasts predicting that the upcoming supply surge will be more than offset by demand restoration.
The price of domestically produced energy goods rises as a result of an increase in OPEC pricing. In other words, rising oil prices will have the same effect on the GNP deflator as they do on domestic energy production.
Even if a country imports a substantial amount of oil, oil price hikes have little effect on the GNP deflators of countries with little domestic energy production. The GNP deflator of an oil-importing country is not immediately affected by an increase in OPEC prices.
The output of productive factors owned by the government is included in the calculation of the gross national product (GNP). GNP excludes imports because they are not produced domestically. A gallon of gasoline imported and consumed is added to the consumption account and deducted from it when GNP is recalculated.
The currency of a country that suffers from a decrease in economic output due to oil price changes is likewise affected. The dollar exchange rate is influenced significantly by the demand for dollar-denominated assets, of which oil is one of them.
An increase in the price of oil will first and foremost lead to the appreciation in the value of the USD because it will do one of the following things:
- It leads to the tightening of the US credit market relative to other countries. At the same time, the OPEC block experiences a surplus, and there is typically a spike in their demand for dollar-denominated international reserve assets.
- It raises the demand for dollar reserves by oil-importing countries because they are apprehensive about the extent of the deficits they have.
- When the demand for domestic credit grows, the need for international dollar reserves grows as well, and the trade deficit grows, the value of the dollar rises and falls thereafter.
Oil trade and speculation
Speculators will often try to keep the dollar’s fluctuation to a minimum. Dollar short sellers will sell the currency when it first rises, and then they’d buy back the currency when the dollar is lower in order to cover their positions. Dollar fluctuation will be lessened by these purchases and sales.
However, they won’t totally dampen the fluctuation. A speculator’s anticipated gains must outweigh the costs of their borrowing. In order to profit from shorting the dollar, a speculator would have to assume that the currency would devalue by at least the interest rate.
Stabilizing speculation does not prevent exchange rate fluctuations as large as the annualized rate of interest; bigger swings are feasible when speculators demand fair risk premiums over the interest rate.
In the past, the Federal Reserve has often responded to rising oil prices with credit policies that were rather restrictive. Depending on its impression that US prices are rising faster than those in other countries or that they are rising significantly higher than in previous inflationary periods in the United States, this reaction may be warranted.
Such a reaction by the Fed often triggers dollar appreciation. When the demand for dollars and dollar-denominated assets exceeds the demand for assets denominated in foreign currencies, the Fed also expands dollar-denominated credit at a lower rate than other central banks do.
Note that trade surpluses in oil-importing countries can potentially counterbalance the demand-reducing impacts of a rise in oil prices. As a result of the increase in trade surplus, the exchange rate would appreciate and somewhat offset the initial inflationary effect caused by the increase in oil prices.
In summary
With the petrodollar system, USD has been raised to the status of the world’s reserve currency, which has allowed the US to maintain a large trade imbalance and exert economic hegemony over the rest of the world. Through this system, other global currencies can appreciate or depreciate against the dollar depending on whether OPEC increases or decreases oil output. Traders can therefore use this knowledge to adjust their positions appropriately.
