Light sweet WTI Midland is now firmly at the centre of price discovery for crude oil. It is a key component of Dated Brent and the global swing barrel, and European and Asian buyers are beginning to purchase crude on a WTI Houston basis.
In most major markets, crude oil is generally transported by water. But the WTI Houston and Midland markets differ, with oil travelling first by pipeline in small, rateable transactions. The high volume of daily transactions means that there are many points of price discovery throughout the day.
Cargo markets by nature consist of a few large, single trades. But on the US Gulf Coast cargoes are priced at a differential to the pipeline market, so they benefit from the underlying price dynamics of the highly liquid and transparent US pipeline market.
For these reasons, understanding the WTI supply chain and the drivers of its price formation is imperative for anyone buying, selling or trading crude oil worldwide. Our expert team of crude oil market reporters will endeavour to capture this in the first part of our WTI value chain webinar.
In this webinar, you will learn:
Gus Vasquez is the Editorial Manager for Crude and LPG for Argus in the Americas and has been in charge of crude pricing on this side of the globe since the beginning of 2008. Prior to that, he was a member of Argus’ European crude team, based in London, where he covered the North Sea, Mediterranean, Russian, and west African crude markets.
Before joining Argus in 2006, he spent four years as a market analyst for Venezuela’s national oil company, working out of their London office.
Jeff opened Argus' Calgary office in 2010 and was posted there for three years as Canada Country Manager. He worked with Gus Vasquez and others to introduce Argus WTI Houston price assessment at MEH in 2015, and has travelled widely in Europe and Asia, meeting with market participants who now use WTI pricing in their businesses.
