Thursday, October 29, 2009

Saudis Drop WTI Oil Contract

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threatens the dominance of the world’s most heavily traded oil futures contract. It is the main contract traded on Nymex.

The move reveals the growing discontent of Riyadh and its US refinery customers with WTI after the price of the price of the benchmark became separatedfrom the global oil market this year.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8cda145a-c3fe-11de-8de6-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1