Oil Prices Swing In Tanzania – The Social And Economic Impact To The Community: A Case Study Of Dar Es Salaam

ABSTRACT

This research was put in place, in order to investigate on oil prices swing in Tanzania– the social and economic impact to the community. The study specifically, focused on investigating what causes of oil price swing, discover an impact of oil price swings strike on the fuel or oil users, travelers and businessmen or transport service providers, assess how price swings impacted the social (market) and economic activities to the community in general and document the status of oil prices in the previous five years.

In actualizing this study, a cross-sectional research design was adopted; the sample size of 103 respondents was involved whereby, 30 key informants were interviewed and 73 respondents filled the questionnaires. Forecasting techniques (Time series model) were put in practice during data interpretation. The study has used both quantitative and qualitative methods for data analysis. Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel (Ms Excel) were used to analyze the data. The study has found out that, causes of oil price swings are supply and demand in the market, depreciation of Tshs. against USDs dollar, changes in the pricing of oil products in the world market, oil marketing, weather, technology and geo-politics instability. The data further, revealed the consequences of oil price swings to users that (24.3%) raises of prices of commodities and it affects standard of living. (22.1%) it increases cost of production and transportation. Whilst minority (8.8%) shifting from using oil to firewood and charcoal. Through documenting petroleum fuels (Kerosene, Diesel and Petrol) by using forecasting technique shown that oil prices in three years to come from 2017 to 2019 will be dropping. Hence, we document that, in practice, consumers, policymakers, financial market participants and economists may have different oil price expectations. Further investigation should be done on extraction of mineral gas which is available to our country to reduce the use of petroleum fuels for running machines and domestics‟ purposes.