Omer Saglam

Date of Award

3-19-2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Bradley E. Anderson, PhD

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 Fiscal 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 JP-8 consumption figures will go on to follow the recent trend via Holt’s Linear Method. Also, the study shows that good short-term predictions can be obtained with more simple and easy-to-implement methods, versus complex ones. When we consider long-term forecasts, 5-years in this case, multiple regression 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.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GLM-ENS-09-9

DTIC Accession Number

ADA500354

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