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Crude oil is the dominant energy resource worldwide. The focus of this paper is on its historical behaviour and subsequent implications for the global economy with an emphasis on the lead–lag relationship between spot and future prices. The paper examines the behaviour of oil spot and future prices and their determinants during periods of market uncertainty, particularly in the context of economic and financial crises. The analysis highlights a key controversy within the extant literature, as to whether spot or futures prices are the main crude oil price indicator. The literature review indicates that the lead–lag relationship is a dynamic one, especially during periods of sustained uncertainty, which leads to significant disagreements and incongruities among researchers regarding the price that plays a dominant role.

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There is significant variety in the range of quantitative methods used to analyse problems in commodity business finance. This study focuses on how these methods can be to aid the understanding of how crude oil spot and futures markets behave during major shock events that are characterised by high levels of uncertainty and risk to businesses that rely on commodities to function. This paper uses the context of the relationships and behaviour of spot and futures prices of major oil benchmarks such as Brent crude oil (the European crude oil benchmark), the West Texas Intermediate (the US benchmark) and the Dubai crude oil (the Middle East benchmark). The research methodologies under consideration are of a great value for businesses, and in particular to practitioners, as they help them by offering in depth analysis of oil price behaviour. This aids decision making for example on topics such as strategic investment and sourcing of raw materials. Through integrating different methodologies, this paper also contributes towards the operationalisation of behavioural finance theory. This relatively new theory considers that the markets are not as predictable as once thought and decisions are really made based on how we, as humans, make decisions. The use of multiple methodologies contributes to capture the variance that occurs across the market under behavioural finance theory.