Platts Global Crude Oil Summit: Stay on Top of the Recent Trends in Oil Benchmarks with ZEMA

The oil pricing landscape is facing critical changes as regional activities surrounding established benchmarks are impacting markets on a global scale. Asia’s lower-than-anticipated appetite for crude oil, coupled with the misconception that all production will be dominated by the Middle East, suggests a potential re-emergence of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) as the international price reference.1 […]

Backwardation, Tightening Inventories, and Higher Prices Ahead: One View of Oil’s Future

Energy economist Phil Verleger has been waging a steady war against the argument that “too much” trading of energy futures contributes to higher prices. To the contrary, as he has written many times, in the long run it will contribute to lower prices, and current government efforts to curb speculation by diminishing volume is laying […]