Using Real Options for Policy Analysis

Thomas J. Hand

National Energy Technology Laboratory

Office of Systems and Policy Support

November 9, 2001
Executive Summary

Real options are a way of calculating the value of a future option in an uncertain world.
So why are real options of interest to us? Because they provide a way of valuing research
and energy projects in terms of future benefits. Options provide a way of estimating
benefits for projects that may or may not become economically viable in the future, but
are nevertheless valuable in much the same way that an insurance policy protects its
owner, whether or not an actual claim is filed. They can also be used as a tool to evaluate
ongoing projects as to whether to deploy, abandon, or continue their development.

The Black-Scholes Formula is the fundamental means to evaluate the worth of a call
option, which is basically what a research project represents. The full Black-Scholes
Formula for call options can be written as:

C = S e-yt N(d1) - K e-rt N(d2) where:

ln(S/K) + (r y + 2/2) t
d1 = -----------------------------

sbt

d2 = d1 - sbt

S = Current value of the stock

K = Strike or exercise price of the option
r = Risk-free interest rate corresponding to the life of the option
= Standard deviation in the value of the stock
y = Dividend rate of the stock
t = Time to expiration of the option

Where N(d) is the probability that a random draw from a standard normal distribution
(where the mean is zero and is one) will be less than d. Of course e is the base for
the natural logarithm (e = 2.718...) and ln is the natural logarithm.

While this formula is a little complicated, it can easily be evaluated by using a

spreadsheet model. I have created an Excel spreadsheet model for this formula, named
Real Options Pricing Model.xls, that is available to perform these calculations. Most
of the input parameters can also easily be estimated, with the possible exception of the
standard deviation. For stock market situations, the input parameters are pretty obvious.
However, for other types of situations, such as research projects or natural resources,
estimating these inputs is not as straightforward. To help in this understanding, some
simple examples will be given in this paper.

NREL is an avid user of real options. NREL has even set up a web site to allow online
evaluations of real options: http://analysis.nrel.gov/realoptions/default.asp. At this site

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they have two online models for real options valuations of renewable energy R&D and
valuation of distributed generation assets. The point is that NREL has used real options to
support their programs and sees merits in this approach. It is time for NETL to begin
using the real options approach as well.

There is a general conclusion that can be made. Research expenditures should have
much higher option value in those industries or technologies that are more volatile, since
the variance in the future cash flows are much higher. For a NETL example, consider
natural gas fired power generation versus coal fired power. Since natural gas prices are
much more volatile than coal prices, the development of a better natural gas fired
technology has greater option value than development of a coal fired technology, in
general. Of course, this doesnt mean that any natural gas fired technology is more
valuable than a coal technology the actual situation needs to be evaluated but that
companies can profit from the uncertainty in the natural gas industry. It does give the
edge to natural gas fired power generation, however.

Introduction

A real option is a way of calculating the value of a future option in an uncertain world.
They were originally conceived in the financial markets as a way to bet on the future.
There are two basic kinds of options: call and put, with call options being more common
(and useful for our purposes). In the stock market, a call option gives the owner the right,
but not the obligation, to purchase the stock at given price for a certain period of time.

For example, say you buy a call option on XYZ stock with an exercise price of $100,
good for 90 days. If at the end of the 90-day period, XYZs stock price is less than $100,
then the option is worthless. If however, XYZ is worth $120 at the end of the period,
then the call option is worth $20. In other words, as long as XYZ is worth more than
$100 at the end of the time period, the call option has a real value. However, if the time
period has not yet expired and XYZ worth less than $100, the call option still has a real
value since there is always the chance that the stock could be worth more than a $100.
This is the idea behind real options that even a stock (or project) which appears to have
no current value, can have a real value in an uncertain world.

In the stock market world, these (unexpired) call options would be valued by the buying
and selling of these options, similar to what happens to the underlying stocks themselves.
For a long time, this was the only way that options could be valued, i.e., by the market
itself. However, some economists have since derived a mathematical formula for valuing
options, the famous Black-Scholes Formula. Economists Myron Scholes, Robert
Merton, and the late Fischer Black developed this formula, which earned them the 1997
Nobel Prize in Economics.

So why are real options of interest to us? Because they provide a way of valuing research
and energy projects in terms of future benefits. Options provide a way of estimating

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benefits for projects that may or may not become economically viable in the future, but
are nevertheless valuable in much the same way that an insurance policy protects its
owner, whether or not an actual claim is filed. They can also be used as a tool to evaluate
ongoing projects as to whether to deploy, abandon, or continue their development.

The Black-Scholes Formula and Its Input Parameters

The Black-Scholes Formula is the fundamental means to evaluate the worth of a call
option, which is basically what a research project represents. While the derivation of this
formula is complicated, a brief description of its methodology may be useful. The basic
idea behind the formula (in financial situations) is that an investor can precisely replicate
the payoff to a call option by buying the underlying stock and financing part of the stock
purchase by borrowing. Considering the previous example, suppose that instead of
owning the call option, you purchased a share of XYZ stock itself and borrowed the $100
exercise price. At the options expiration date, you sell the stock for $120, pay back the
$100 loan, and you are left with the $20 difference less the interest on the loan. Note that
at any price above the $100 exercise price, this equivalence exists between the payoff on
the call option and the payoff from the replicating portfolio.

But what about before the call option expires? You can still match its future payoff by
creating a replicating portfolio. However, you must buy a fraction of a share of the stock
and borrow a fraction of the exercise price. How much are these fractions? That is what
the Black-Scholes Formula tells you.

It states that the price of a call option, C, is equal to a fraction N(d1) of the stocks
current price, S, minus a fraction N(d2) of the exercise price. The fractions depend
upon six factors, five of which are directly observable. They are: the price of the stock,
the exercise price of the option, the risk-free interest rate, the dividend yield for the stock,
and the time to maturity of the option. The only unobservable is the volatility of the
underlying stock price.

The full Black-Scholes Formula for call options can be written as:

C = S e-yt N(d1) - K e-rt N(d2) where:

ln(S/K) + (r y + 2/2) t
d1 = -----------------------------

sbt

d2 = d1 - sbt

S = Current value of the stock

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 K = Strike or exercise price of the option
r = Risk-free interest rate corresponding to the life of the option
= Standard deviation in the value of the stock
y = Dividend rate of the stock
t = Time to expiration of the option

Where N(d) is the probability that a random draw from a standard normal distribution
(where the mean is zero and is one) will be less than d. Of course e is the base for
the natural logarithm (e = 2.718...) and ln is the natural logarithm.

While this formula is a little complicated, it can easily be evaluated by using a

spreadsheet model. I have created an Excel spreadsheet model for this formula, named
Real Options Pricing Model.xls, that is available to perform these calculations. Most
of the input parameters can also easily be estimated, with the possible exception of the
standard deviation. For stock market situations, the input parameters are pretty obvious.
However, for other types of situations, such as research projects or natural resources,
estimating these inputs is not as straightforward. To help in this understanding, some
simple examples will be given.

Various Examples of Using Black-Scholes

Stock Market Call Option

Lets start with a simple stock market example. Suppose we wanted to evaluate the price
for a call option for XYZ stock. The current stock price is $100, and the call option has a
strike price (or exercise price) of $95, with a life of 90 days. In a simple deterministic (or
absolutely certain) world, the call option would be worth exactly $5, since that is the
difference between the current price and the strike price. However, in the real world of
uncertainty, there is a reasonable chance that the stock could be worth more than $100 in
the next 90 days. Hence, the option is worth more than $5.

The risk-free interest rate is the U.S. Treasury rate for notes of 90-day maturity (the same
length of time as the option), which is currently around 2.2%. The stock does not have a
dividend and the standard deviation of the ln(stock price) is 0.20. Note that the natural
log of the stock price is used instead of the price itself. This is because stock prices can
never go below zero, as required for standard distributions. Hence the natural log
transformation to allow for negative values.

The actual input parameters are as follows:

S = 100 the current stock price

K = 95 the current exercise price
r = 0.022 risk-free interest rate
= 0.20 standard deviation of ln(stock price)

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 y = 0.0 dividend rate of the stock
t = 0.25 time to expiration of option in years

Plugging these values into the Black-Scholes Formula gives us a call option value of
$7.247. Note that this is higher than the difference between the stock and exercise prices,
which is due to the effect of interest rates and the fluctuation of stock prices. If the
interest rate and the standard deviation were both set to zero in the formula, then the
option price would be $5. Conversely, the higher the interest rate and the standard
deviation are, the more the option is worth. Greater uncertainty makes options more
valuable.

Natural resource Valuing an Oil Reserve

Consider an offshore oil property with an estimated oil reserve of 50 million barrels. The
cost to develop the reserves is expected to be $600 million, and the development lag is
two years. The firm has the rights to exploit this reserve for the next 20 years, and the
marginal value of the oil is $12/B. Once developed, the net production revenue each year
will be 5% of the value of the reserve. The risk-free interest rate is 8%, and the variance
in ln(oil prices) is 0.03. Starting with this information, we can use the Black-Scholes
formula to estimate the value of the property today.

The current value of the asset, S, is equal to the value of the developed reserve discounted
back the length of the development lag time at the dividend rate. S = $12 * 50 / (1.05)2 =
$544.22 million. If development is started today, the oil will not be available for sale until
2 years from now. The estimated opportunity cost of this delay is lost production revenue
over the delay period; hence, the discounting of the reserve back at the dividend yield.

The exercise price, or the cost of developing the reserve, is assumed to be fixed over
time. Therefore, K = $600 million.

The risk-free interest rate is 8%, and the time to expiration of the option is 20 years.

For this example, we will assume that the only uncertainty is in the price of the oil, and
the variance becomes the ln(oil prices) = 0.03.

The dividend yield is the (net production revenue)/(value of the reserve) = 5%.

Using these values and the Black-Scholes formula, we can calculate the value of the
reserve to be $97.1 million. While this oil reserve is not viable at current prices, it is still
a valuable property because of its potential if oil prices go up.

R&D Projects Valuing a Patent

Consider a bio-technology firm has developed a patented drug called Wonderdrug, which
has passed FDA approval to treat a disease. Assume that you are trying to value the
patent to the firm, and you wish to use the Black-Scholes formula for its value.

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An internal analysis of the drug today, based upon the potential market and the price that
the firm can expect to charge, yields a present value of the cash flows of $3.422 billion,
prior to considering the initial development cost. The initial cost of developing the drug
for commercial use is estimated to be $2.875 billion, if the drug is introduced today.
Thus, from a simple net present value analysis, the value of the project is $3.422 billion
$2.875 billion, for a positive $547 million. In other words, this project would be
undertaken in a certain world. However, lets consider the option value in this situation.

The rest of this situation is that the firm has a patent on the drug for the next 17 years,
and the corresponding long-term treasury bond rate is 6.7%. While it is difficult to
predict the uncertainty or variance in cash flows and present values, the average variance
in publicly traded bio-technology firms is 0.224.

It is assumed that the potential for healthy returns exists only during the patent life, and
after the patent expires, competition will limit returns to an industry average return.
Thus, any delay in introducing the drug, will cost the firm one year of patent-protected
healthy returns. Then the dividend rate, or the cost of the delay will be 1/17, and the next
year it will be 1/16, etc. Based on these assumptions, we can estimate the following input
values to the option pricing formula.

S = $3.422 billion the present value of the cash flows from drug
K = $2.875 billion the initial cost of developing drug today
r = 0.067 risk-free interest rate for 17 years
= 0.224 0.5 = 0.473 standard deviation of expected present values
y = 1 / 17 = 0.0589 cost of delay (or dividend rate)
t = 17 years patent life

Plugging these values into the Black-Scholes formula gives us a call option value of
$0.907 billion, or $907 million. Note that the option value is higher than the NPV value
of $547 million, although both values are positive. Thus, it would be profitable whether
the company developed the drug right away, or waited.

The additional $360 million value of the option value over the NPV value represents the
premium for the optional value created by uncertainty. This can be interpreted to mean
that the firm would be better off waiting than developing the drug immediately, never
minding the cost of delay. However, the cost of delay will increase over time, and make
development of the drug more likely.

Of course, there are many other factors to consider in a real world decision, but this
illustrates the potential benefit of such an analysis. And in reality, the firm would
consider many other perturbations before making such a decision.

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 NRELs Real Options Analysis Center

NREL is an avid user of real options. NREL has even set up a web site to allow online
evaluations of real options: http://analysis.nrel.gov/realoptions/default.asp. At this site
they have two online models for real options valuations of renewable energy R&D and
valuation of distributed generation assets. Supposedly, one can go to this web site and
run different cases. However, when I visited the distributed generation site, I could not
change any of the parameters. But you can see the results of their cases.

In addition, NREL has posted the results of their real options analysis as it applies to
renewable energy technologies. They have also collaborated with the Colorado School of
Mines to publish a paper: Optimizing the Level of Renewable Electric R&D
Expenditures Using Real Options Analysis, dated June 5, 2001, by Graham A Davis of
the Colorado School of Mines, and Brandon Owens of NREL.

The point of mentioning all of this is that NREL has used real options to support their
programs and sees the merits in this approach. It is time for NETL to begin using the real
options approach as well.

Getting & estimating data for calculations

While the Black-Scholes Formula only has six input parameters, estimating the values for
these can often be challenging for real-world situations even for stock market experts.
While the previous examples should be helpful, lets discuss each of the six parameters
and how they can be estimated in some more detail.

S, or the current asset value

This is the current value of the project itself, excluding the cost of the up-front investment
cost, which is often prepared for standard capital budgeting analysis. While there is often
a lot of noise or uncertainty in these estimates, this should not be viewed as a problem,
but rather is the reason for performing the option pricing analysis in the first place. If the
future cash flows were known with certainty, there would be no reason for options
pricing since the options price would be zero.

K, or the exercise price of the option

This is the investment cost for the option. It is assumed that this cost remains constant in
present value dollars and that any uncertainty associated with the project is reflected in
the future cash flows.

r, or the risk-free interest rate, and t, or the time to expiration

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This is the interest rate for U.S. Treasury notes (which are the risk-free standard) for the
length of time for the option to be valid. Note that interest rates often change
dramatically and quickly as a result of both financial conditions and the actions of the
Federal Reserve. While it is easy enough to determine the treasury yields as a function of
time from any financial publication, the trickier part is determining what the time to
expiration is. While in some cases, such as patent protection, this time period is clear, in
many more cases the length of time becomes much fuzzier. In cases of technological
innovation, this time period is the time for which the innovation has a clear advantage
over the alternatives. Since competitive advantage fades over time, the number of years
that the option can be invoked becomes more of an educated guess than a certainty.
Thus, in real situations, both the risk-free interest rate and the time to expiration become
somewhat difficult to estimate.

, or the standard deviation of the expected returns

Of all the parameters that must be estimated, the standard deviation is probably the most
difficult. First of all, its not likely to be a quantity that most people track or even think
much about. Second, even if this variable is tracked, it becomes difficult to accurately
measure. And finally, there is always the problem that while historic values may be
known, that this time is different. With these difficulties in mind, how does one
estimate the standard deviation? This question cannot be ignored, since the existence of
the deviation is the reason for the value of real options if there were no deviation, the
real option value would be zero. There are at least three practical ways to estimate the
standard deviation.

1. If similar projects have been undertaken in the past, the variance in the cash flows
from those projects can be used as an estimate. This is probably the best way if the
latest project is not too different from the previous projects.

2. Either decision tree or Monte Carlo analyses can be performed to estimate the total
variance or deviation across all likely scenarios. With decision trees, probabilities
can be assigned to various market scenarios, the cash flows estimated under each
scenario, and the variance estimated across the present values. Monte Carlo analyses
are usually performed with spreadsheet add-on software such as @Risk or Crystal
Ball where probability distributions are estimated for each of several key input
parameters market size, market share, profit margins, etc and simulations run to
determine the variance in the present values.

3. The variance of the value of companies involved in the same business as the project
being considered can be used as an estimate for the variance. For example, the
variance of the stock price of a natural gas exploration company can be used as a
proxy for the variance in a natural gas field development project.

y, or the dividend rate

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The dividend rate is also considered to be the cost of delay, which is the more appropriate
concept for NETL evaluations. If we were interested in only stock market options, the
dividend rate is the appropriate term to employ here. In the stock market, the company is
paying dividends, and thus its future value is reduced by the dividend payments. Thus, it
is part of the cost for the option holder not to receive these dividends while waiting.

However, for our purposes, the better concept is the cost of delay (which is really the
same idea in different words). Since the project expires after a fixed time period (or at
least loses value), each year of delay translates into one less year of cash flows. If the
cash flows are evenly distributed over time, then the annual cost of delay is 1/(life in
years), or 1/t in terms of the Black-Scholes formula input parameters. Thus, if the life of
the project is 10 years, then the annual cost of delay is 1/10 or 10%. Note too, that the
cost of delay rises each year to 1/9 in year 2, 1/8 in year 3, etc.

Conclusions

Real options analysis can provide useful insight into decision making since it
incorporates the uncertainty in the future and uncertainty is inevitable. Real options,
quantified via the Black-Scholes formula, provide a sound mathematical and financial
basis for estimating the value of this uncertainty.

There are some other observations that should be fairly obvious by now. First, research
expenditures should have much higher option value in those industries or technologies
that are more volatile, since the variance in the future cash flows are much higher. For a
NETL example, consider natural gas fired power generation versus coal fired power.
Since natural gas prices are much more volatile than coal prices, the development of a
better natural gas fired technology has greater option value than development of a coal
fired technology, in general. Of course, this doesnt mean that any natural gas fired
technology is more valuable than a coal technology the actual situation needs to be
evaluated but that companies can profit from the uncertainty in the natural gas industry.
It does give the edge to natural gas fired power generation, however.

Finally, the real options tool, like any other tool, must be used wisely. If used blindly,
real options may be used to justify bad decisions. Real options are just another way of
viewing and analyzing a decision. Real options can be used or abused just as any other
analysis method can be. Ultimately, there is no replacement for common sense.

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