Oman welcomes launch of new trading platform for multiple crude grades

BUSINESS REPORTER -

MUSCAT, APRIL 6 -

Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), an international energy futures and commodities exchange in the Middle East, announced on Monday the launch of Alternative Crude Ecosystem (ACE) — a bilateral trading platform to trade multiple crude grades through the exchange.

DME will make the platform available for all participants and will offer traders the opportunity to trade bilateral barrels of Dubai, Upper Zakum, Murban, Basrah Light, Basrah Heavy, Al Shaheen and Oman versus the DME Oman Sour Crude Benchmark futures

Commenting on the announcement, Salim bin Nasser al Aufi, Under-Secretary of Oman’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals, said: “The Ministry of Energy and Minerals (MEM) supports all continuous improvement initiatives in the oil markets as it enhances the price discovery and offers a fair price for the key commodity of the region. DME Oman has been the benchmark for us since 2007.

We believe DME has successfully passed a major stress test in 2020 and presented itself as the natural benchmark for crudes produced in our region. With the launch of ACE, national oil companies across the region will have the opportunity to discover the fair price for grades based on the DME Oman benchmark.”

This new functionality allows the Middle East Crude participants a way to execute multiple Over Counter (OTC) crude grades as differentials against DME Oman futures. The new service offered by DME will shed the light on the growing importance and the status of DME Oman as a strong and reliable Benchmark for the Middle East, representing consistent fair value for Sour Crude barrels to the East of Suez.

Raid al Salami, Managing Director, DME said: “We are always looking to enrich our customers’ experience and enable them to benefit from what the market has to offer. ACE is a unique platform where it combines Futures and OTC in one transparent window for the very first time, offering all participants opportunities to optimise their trading activities and manage their exposure across multiple crude grades.”