Petroleum Business Review

Abstract West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is a pivotal benchmark in the global energy market, exerting a decisive influence on economic expectations and national macroeconomic policies. As the primary pricing basis on the New York Mercantile Exchange and numerous energy futures contracts, WTI is subject to persistent and severe price volatility. Such fluctuations, often appearing as abrupt upward or downward shocks, profoundly affect key macroeconomic indicators. These include inflation, economic growth, trade balances, corporate profitability, production costs, and government budgets. Consequently, variations in WTI prices influence oil and gas markets, financial stability, energy security, and even international geopolitical relations. To address these challenges, this study develops a hybrid VMD+SVR framework to model and forecast WTI crude oil futures prices across short-, medium-, and long-run horizons. Empirical findings reveal that across all three horizons, the proposed hybrid model consistently achieves the lowest forecasting errors compared with alternative approaches. Moreover, the Diebold–Mariano and Wilcoxon tests statistically confirm the superior predictive performance of the hybrid VMD+SVR model. These results highlight the importance of integrating advanced adaptive signal decomposition (VMD) with powerful nonlinear learning algorithms (SVR) for accurate oil price forecasting. The proposed approach not only enhances forecasting accuracy but also provides practical insights for policymakers in managing economic risks, stabilizing budgets dependent on oil revenues, and formulating sustainable energy strategies. It opens a new avenue for developing financial forecasting models inspired by advanced signal processing.