Russia Pushes For National Oil Index

The St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (Spimex) is pushing ahead with initiatives to establish Russia's own price assessment for crude oil and talks are currently underway according to Energy Intelligence.

• The efforts were intensified last year after foreign pricing agencies left the country and after price assessments being still made by Argus became irrelevant as Europe’s trade in Urals has declined to almost nothing.
• The aim of the national price assessment is mainly for tax purposes, but it could also help Russia to establish a price that it could use for Urals trading globally.
• The need for a national price index now is crucial and Spimex has accumulates enough knowledge and experience to provide such an index, Spimex head Alexei Rybnikov said.
• A recent cargo of Russia's Urals crude was sold at $37.80 per barrel in the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, according to an Argus assessment, which demonstrated that current assessments are irrelevant and that the need for a national price indicator is crucial, experts say.
• Russia has unsuccessfully tried to establish Urals as a benchmark grade several times over the past two decades.