**1. Introduction**

Crude petroleum is one of the fundamental sources of energy in the world and plays an important role in economic growth and development of many economies. Because of the need for this product, the oil market is subjected to the market forces of demand and supply, which do lead to the fluctuation in the pricing. Hamilton [1], Blanchard and Gali [2], viewed, changes in the price of oil as an imperative source of economic fluctuations, in which the resultant effect led to global shock, capable of affecting many economic activities instantaneously. This shock is perceived generally to have a similar impact due to events like fall in growth rate, high unemployment rate, and high inflation rate, while the magnitude and the causes

of the effect of these shocks may differ. For import-based economy, hike in the oil price will lead to shock in the economy, vice versa for the export-based economy [1, 3].

There are many established empirical analyses on the macroeconomic consequence of oil price shocks to net exporting countries, this is based on the dependency between oil price and the business cycle which can be explained through the impact of the oil price shocks on aggregate demand. Practitioners opined that an increase in oil price reduces aggregate supply since high energy prices mean that firms will purchase less energy. As a consequence, the productivity of any given volume of capital and labor will decline and leads to potential output loss. This invariably will lead to a decline in factors of production and real wages ([4, 5], p. 23; [6, 7]).

To expatiate further the influence of the oil price shocks on aggregate demand, Riaz et al. [5] submitted that oil is one of the basic inputs in manufacturing industries, any positive oil price shock increases the cost of manufacturing. As the cost of manufacturing rises the profit margins on investments fall will influence investors to postpone their irrevocable investments. Reductions in investment causes cuts in production level, consequently exports of the country are negatively affected and economy has to face adverse balance of trade. So also the effect permeates into households, oil price fluctuation induces the consumers to reschedule their expenditures on durable goods. This suggested that oil price shocks have serious concerns for all types of economies as aggregate demand is reduced from both consumption and investment sides. Increase in both oil prices and uncertainty in oil prices is detrimental for the economy (p. 24).

The negative effects of oil price shocks are more on the net-exporters of oil of the developing economies, the effect could be attributed to over-dependence on oil revenue, importation of basic necessity and susceptibility of their tradable lagging sectors to Dutch disease syndrome, the consequences of externalities, and economic pass-through (inflation) [8–12].

In the submissions of Abeng [8], opined that theoretically, an increase in oil price should reflect more revenue dividend for oil-exporting countries as it is expected to enhance foreign exchange earnings and build reserve in the short-run. Conversely, for net-importers of refined petroleum products for instance Nigeria with domestic regulation of oil prices (subsidies), oil price increase may not transform to the anticipated economic advantage, due to fiscal difficulties, restraining government's ability to finance import in addition to meeting other international obligations (p.3). Nigerian has a deficit of ₦7114.49 and ₦8324.76 billion Naira for 2017 and 2018 periods for importation of non-oil products and spent about ₦2618.97 and ₦3833.82 billion on importation of refined petroleum product for the period of 2017 and 2018 [13]. These figures stress the vulnerability of the economy to the impulses of international oil price. The consequences may be unfavorable to economic growth arising from increased domestic production cost and decline in aggregate demand (p. 23).

In Ibrahim [14] remarks in studying the responses of non-oil productive sectors that is agriculture, manufacturing and service to shocks in change in oil price in Nigeria. In his submissions, the results obtained reveal that oil price impacted positively on aggregate output but negatively on agricultural, manufacturing and service sector suggesting that at the aggregate level, oil price is incline to increase aggregate output whereas an increase in oil price impacted negatively on the outputs of productive sectors as oil serves as an input factor in the production process of these sectors. This specifies that fluctuation in oil price creates uncertainty in the production capacity of the productive sectors and it also

*Impact of Oil Price Fluctuation on the Economy of Nigeria, the Core Analysis for Energy… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94055*

destabilizes the effectiveness of the government fiscal management of crude oil revenue.

Also Ayadi [15] posited that the forecast errors in industrial production are credited to volatility in real exchange rates and that changes in oil prices are only slightly important in influencing industrial production in Nigeria. Moreover, oil price changes affect real exchange rates, which, in turn, affect industrial production. He remarked that it should be noted that the indirect effect of oil prices on industrial production is not statistically significant. Therefore, the implication of the results presented in his paper is that an increase in oil prices does not cause an increase in industrial production in Nigeria.

According to [16, 17], the economy of Nigeria was affected by the decline in the revenue due to a fall in the price of crude oil alongside production. They cited that in about twenty months, the oil price has nosedived rapidly from as high as about one hundred and thirty dollars per barrel to as low as twenty-eight dollars and quantity also dropped from 2.15 Mbpd to 1.81 Mbpd in the earlier months of 2016, this resulted to a recession.

The crude petroleum industry is among the largest contributors to the economic growth, before the recession experienced by the country, in 2016 the growth rate shrank by 13.65%, a more substantial decline than that in 2015 of 5.45%. This reduced the oil sectors share of real GDP to 8.42% in 2016, compared to 9.61 per cent in 2015, (NBS, Q4 [18]). Aside from the contribution to the growth rate, the industry affects monetary variable and high unemployment rate [2]. According to Nweze and Edeme [19], as quoted by Adedokun [16], CBN [20] opined that on average, 75% of government revenues and on average 93% of foreign earnings from trade in goods and services, in the last ten years come from oil export, which informs part of the major sources used in financing the country's imports.

#### **2. Literature review**

Fluctuate in the price of natural resources is a term more related to the oil shocks because the majority of the problems encountered concerning recession is aggravated by a change in oil price. Hamilton [1], in his abstract, he opined that historical oil price shocks were principally caused by physical disruptions of supply, the price hike of 2007–2008 was caused by supply not meeting the excessive world demand. The consequences of recession are very similar with significant effects on consumption. According to Hamilton (1983) as cited by Sabiu [21], opined that ten out of eleven economic recessions were preceded by a sharp increase in oil prices in the United States.

Although, In a more recent development in the investigation of the causes of oil price shocks, many practitioners do not see supply as the sole cause of oil price shocks. The neo-monetarist, the likes of Bernanke et al. [22] sees oil and energy costs as insignificant relative to total production costs to account for the entire decline in output that, at least some events, has followed increases in the price of oil, they foresee that the monetary policy taken during spikes in the price of oil as the major contributing factors to the economic shocks.

Kilian [23] opined that historically, the decompositions of fluctuations in the real price of oil shows that oil price shocks have been driven mainly by a combination of global aggregate demand shocks and precautionary demand shocks, rather than oil supply shocks.

In furtherance to clear the air on the causes of oil price fluctuations, which was generally believed to have outgrown the traditional demand and supply

factors, Humbatova and Hajiyev [24] made references, to the Er-Riad summit of 2007 where conclusions where reached on the oil market trend that, it is not related to OPEC decisions. They concluded that the current trend is due to financialisation factors, lack of production capacities in oil production, reduction in the world oil reserves, natural disasters, political events and processes.

The financialisation of oil market made oil a speculative commodity in the financial market contrary to the real commodity. This has been one among the major sources of oil price volatility [25, 26].

The exposure of the oil market to commodity market brought about the issue of speculation, that is investors' expectations about future oil supply and demand. This breeds in the issue of inventory, either below or above the ground since oil can be stored. Others factors are the price of dollars, for net oil importers appreciation of dollar mean lower consumption of oil whereas the net exporters mean more revenue from the sales of oil, the reverse is the case when dollar price depreciate [26, 27].

The most recent factor in the front burner affecting fluctuation of oil price is the improvement of shale-oil technology (the shale revolution in the United States). The technological innovations that decreased the liquid fuel consumption and influenced the global energy markets to the point that many countries that are solely dependent on the oil resource plunged into economic crisis in 2016 due to falling in oil demand [26, 28]. Davig et al. [29] added that the fall in demand led to shifts in precautionary demand in the mid-2014 to mid-2015, this played a fundamental role in driving oil prices lower due to market glut and exacerbate the oil crisis to net exporters in 2016.

Fluctuation in the price of oil as a result of the aforesaid causes create the effect of uncertainty in the outputs of industries, not only to the manufacturing sector but also to the energy management sectors in process industries, that is oil and gas industries. According to Elder and Serletis [30] they posited that the theories of investment under uncertainty and real options predict that uncertainty about oil prices will tend to depress current investment. This uncertainty can be due to rise or fall in the oil prices.

Higher oil prices do come with a glade tidings for some industries. Apparently, they benefit oil and gas industries, but have both positive and negative multiplier effects to other components of an economy [31]. According to Hayes upstream firms face more hitches when oil prices fall since market forces is the determining factor at which oil is sold, and their costs of production are largely fixed. The higher the cost of production the higher the losses incurred by the producer. Downstream companies suffer a lesser consequences since they profit by purchasing crude oil and selling the refined products at a premium. Their earnings and profit margins always remain fairly stable even with fluctuating in oil prices. The submissions of Hayes is line with the suggestions of Jobert et al. [32] they posited that rise in the prices of oil are much desirable to the oil industries because they will make higher turnover, simultaneously, the rise in the oil prices correlate with waning outcomes for large capital expenditure projects for oil recovery. Large and capital-intensive drilling operations are hit harder in contrast to the smaller rigs, which can decide to shut down pending on when prices rise again.

Energy and the development of the shale oil is among the current drivers of US economy, new jobs opportunities has sprang up due to economy of scale (internal and external) for the Americans. Persistence, fall in oil price, could lead to folding up of operations for many onshore fracking wells that lack the working capital to continue drilling. Although the hydraulic fracturing is more expensive than typical *Impact of Oil Price Fluctuation on the Economy of Nigeria, the Core Analysis for Energy… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94055*

drilling, so shale gas companies will be among the first hit if the cost of production prevail over profits [33].

According to Adesina [34], he made references to the local key oil and gas corporation having a rough time due to the fall in oil price in the recent time with prices lower than local production in Nigeria. The local oil firms are fighting hard to survive as Crude and remains at the \$20, which means Nigeria's crude is being sold at a loss, coupled with the fact that oil demand has plummeted to the lowest level in more than a generation.

While on the other side Deloitte [35] views was on the impact of the oil price collapse on company accounts, fall in oil price tends to increase risk of loss of assets. They opined that lower oil price forecasts mean lower future profits from an asset. These leads to reduction in the present value of the asset, and the asset values on balance sheets cannot be fully recovered, this results in write-off, and tendencies of knock-on effect connected to deferring taxes and holding company investment balances.

In Nigeria one of the major contributing factors for 2016 recession was fall in the price of oil coupled with decreased in quantity of production, the recession was accompanied by high inflation rate on basic commodities (cost-push) [16]. Monetary policy on inflation is always been informed by the general price level. Before the recession, the inflation rate was at a single digit of 8.0% and 9.55% per cent for 2014 and 2015 [36]. During the recession, the inflation rate was about 18.55% per cent that is in 2016 and as expected, the monetary authority introduced a tight monetary policy by raising the cost of borrowing, the interest rate was steady at 14% from July 2017 to the first quarter of 2018 against 2016 which was 200 points higher. This is against the backdrop of relative improvement in the global economy.

Saban et al. [37] Investigated the responses of monetary policy variables of select emerging markets to oil market shocks. Using conventional and Fourier Toda Yamamoto methods. In their findings, the oil prices are sensitive to structural shifts and, the causality approach with gradual/smooth shifts indicates oil price shocks influencing the currencies of Indonesia and South Africa, interest rates in Brazil and India, and inflation in South Africa and Turkey.

Also in the summaries of Santos and Chris [38], used Johansen (1992) co-integration approach and the Toda and Yamamoto [39] causality testing procedure. Applying Wald coefficient test, the nominal interest rates, and expected inflation co-move together, in the long run, there is a uni-directional causality from expected inflation to nominal interest rates as suggested by the Fisher hypothesis in the closed economy context. While in the open economy context, the result showed that the expected inflation and international variables do not contain information that predicts the nominal interest rate.

In the empirical findings of Mohammed and Jauhari [40], they employed asymmetric causality test based on Toda and Yamamoto [39] causality approach to further the causal relationship between exchange rate and inflation differentials in Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore. The results show the existence of Granger causality running from positive cumulative exchange rate shocks to shocks in inflation differentials for Brunei and Malaysia. Also, the asymmetric causality for Singapore runs from both positive and negative cumulative domestic inflation shocks to positive and negative exchange rate shocks respectively.

Chibvalo et al. [41] in their submissions, they employed the Toda-Yamamoto approach to Granger causality to test for a causal relationship between inflation and trade openness in Zambia. They established a bi-directional causality between inflation and trade openness. Further, there exists a positive relationship between inflation and trade openness in Zambia.
