HOUSTON, Feb. 26, 2015
/PRNewswire/ -- Global energy and commodity news and price
reporting agency Argus today launches its much-anticipated
assessment for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil delivered to
Houston.
The new price assessment, based at Magellan's East Houston terminal, marks a milestone in
the development of light sweet crude markets at the US Gulf
coast.
"A new spot market has emerged in the oil capital of the US,"
said Euan Craik, Argus CEO Americas.
"We have consulted widely and constructed the WTI
Houston price in a way that reflects actual trade of a
well-defined crude stream."
Rising production in west Texas
is flooding Houston with WTI, but
traders of the light sweet crude have been forced to value it with
distant benchmarks, like Louisiana's LLS or Midland WTI, both also
published by Argus. The new Argus WTI Houston assessment removes
the basis risk inherent in using a more distant price
benchmark.
The new assessment will be set by a volume-weighted average of
all trades done during the day at Magellan's East Houston terminal. This mirrors the
methodology used for other Gulf coast crude prices published by
Argus.
Nearly 500,000 b/d of WTI from west Texas arrives at Magellan East Houston, where
the terminal operator puts it into segregated tankage and makes
spot trade possible within those tanks. Blended "domestic sweet"
crude is not allowed into those tanks, so the trades there reflect
a very specific quality of crude.
Today's launch of Argus Houston WTI complements widely-used
Argus price indexes for LLS at St
James and WTI Midland, giving each region of the US Gulf
coast a local and liquid light sweet crude price benchmark. Traders
of other sweet crude and condensate in the Houston area will now be able to refer to
values set in the WTI market at Magellan East Houston as a clear
signal of value.
Magellan's East Houston
terminal currently has 4.5mn bl of crude oil storage capacity and
the company is considering adding up to 5mn bl of additional
storage capacity.
Argus WTI Houston will be published in the daily Argus
Americas Crude and Argus Crude reports, and will be
available through Argus Direct, the company's online platform.
Notes to editors
WTI refers to West Texas Intermediate crude, a light low-sulphur
crude oil. Domestic sweet crude is also light and low in sulphur,
but is often the result of blending of several crude grades, some
of which have high levels of nickel, vanadium and acids known as
TAN. Further details can be found at
www.argusmedia.com/methodology
Request more information on the Argus Houston WTI and other
Argus crude price assessments
Houston
Gabriela Alcocer
+ 1 713 968 0000
gabriela.alcocer@argusmedia.com
London
Seana Lanigan
+44 20 7780 4272
seana.lanigan@argusmedia.com
Singapore
Jim
Nicholson
+65 6496 9960
mediasg@argusmedia.com
About Argus Media
Argus is an independent media
organisation with more than 700 full time staff. It is
headquartered in London and has
offices in each of the world's principal commodity centres. Its
main activities comprise publishing market reports containing price
assessments, market commentary and news, and business intelligence
reports that analyse market and industry trends.
More than half of Argus employees are commodity journalists who
specialise in reporting news and price information relating to
physical energy and related commodity markets. They operate
according to a rigorous Editorial Code of Conduct and a compliance
and ethics policy that align with best journalistic practice,
including the avoidance of conflicts of interest.
Argus is a leading provider of data on prices and fundamentals,
news, analysis, consultancy services and conferences for the global
crude, oil products, natural gas, electricity, coal, emissions,
bioenergy, fertilizer, petrochemical, metals and transportation
industries. Data provided by Argus are widely used for indexation
of physical trade. Companies, governments and international
agencies use Argus information for analysis and planning
purposes.
Argus has 19 offices globally, including London, Houston, Washington, New
York, Calgary, Rio de
Janeiro, Singapore,
Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Moscow, Astana and other key centres of the
commodity industries. Argus was founded in 1970 and is a privately
held UK-registered company.
ARGUS, the ARGUS logo, ARGUS MEDIA, ARGUS DIRECT, ARGUS OPEN
MARKETS, AOM, FMB, DEWITT, JIM
JORDAN & ASSOCIATES, JJ&A, FUNDALYTICS, METAL-PAGES,
METALPRICES.COM, Argus publication titles and Argus index names are
trademarks of Argus Media Limited.
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SOURCE Argus Media