The Energy Transportation Uncertainty (ETU) index represents a novel approach to measuring disruptions in the critical midstream segment of global energy supply chains. Building on the established methodology of Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016) for constructing economic policy uncertainty indices, this index systematically tracks threats and disruptions to energy transportation infrastructure through comprehensive media analysis.
Reference: Morão (2025)
Hugo Morão,
The economic effects of tensions in energy transportation,
Research in Transportation Economics,
Volume 112, 2025, 101598,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2025.101598.
From an economic perspective, the ETU index captures a fundamental source of supply-side risk in energy markets. The midstream sector—encompassing pipelines, storage facilities, and transportation networks—serves as the crucial link between energy production and consumption. Disruptions in this segment can create significant bottlenecks, leading to price volatility, supply shortages, and broader economic uncertainty. By quantifying media coverage of these disruptions, the ETU index provides an early warning system for potential energy market stress.
The index employs a text-mining approach that identifies relevant articles through three semantic categories: Energy terms (oil, gas, petroleum, energy), Transportation terms (pipeline, midstream, shipping, rail), and Uncertainty terms (threat, risk, concern, warn). Articles are included only when energy and transportation terms appear within five words of each other, ensuring precise identification of midstream disruptions rather than general energy or transportation news.
Spanning from January 1969 to December 2024, the index draws from an extensive network of English-language media sources across major economies including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Asia-Pacific nations, Middle Eastern countries, and key European markets. This global perspective is economically significant because energy transportation networks are inherently international, and disruptions in one region can have cascading effects across global energy markets.
The index thus serves as a valuable tool for understanding how transportation infrastructure risks translate into broader economic uncertainty, providing researchers and policymakers with quantitative insights into a previously difficult-to-measure aspect of energy market dynamics.