Forecasting USAF JP-8 Fuel Needs
Abstract
Oil is still one of the strategic energy resources for both the U.S. and the USAF today. Accurate oil prediction is important for the U.S. in order to improve the national strategy and the related budget concerns. Today, the U.S. is roughly importing 58% of its petroleum products. Moreover, in Financial Year (FY) 2007 the USAF total energy costs exceeded $6.9 billion. Aviation fuel accounted for approximately 81% of the total AF energy costs. Fluctuations in oil prices have huge impacts on the USAF's JP-8 budgetary calculations. In order to handle this problem, the need for accurate forecasts arises. In this study, we forecast the USAF's JP-8 consumption and costs for the next five year period. The study shows that the JP-8 consumption figures will go on to follow the recent trend via Holt's Linear Method. Also, the study shows that short-term predictions could be performed with more simple and easy-to-implement methods, versus complex ones. When we consider long-term 5-year forecasts, our multiple regression model outperforms ANN modeling within the specified forecast accuracy measures. Our results indicate that the USAF's JP-8 cost for each of the next 5 years will be somewhere between 6.3 and 7.5 billion dollars, via a multiple regression model.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA500354
Entities
People
- Omer Saglam
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology