Murban futures contract opens at $63.43/b as trading of ADNOC's flagship crude begins

New York — Abu Dhabi Murban opened at $63.43/b on March 29 as futures trading of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.'s flagship crude began on a new exchange set up by the national oil producer and the Intercontinental Exchange in the hope of creating a new benchmark for oil headed to Asia.

The contract for June delivery was at $63.47/b as of 2:05 a.m. in Dubai on ICE Futures Abu Dhabi. The June, July and August futures traded in the first five minutes, with June and July equally active.

Murban was assessed by S&P Global Platts at $62.40/b on March 26.

In its second report published on March 28, ADNOC said it would have 1.034 million b/d of Murban available for export in April, with volumes falling to 1.001 million b/d in May, figures that remain unchanged from its first report published February. For June, the first delivery month for the new futures contract, the volume rises to 1.040 million b/d and then 1.070 million b/d in July and August.

Murban is the second physically delivered futures contract to trade on a regional exchange after the Dubai Mercantile Exchange's Oman crude futures.

It is also a deliverable grade in the Platts benchmark Dubai and Oman crude assessments. ADNOC has been pricing its crudes based on Platts Dubai.

IFAD is being launched with nine partner companies that include BP, GS Caltex of South Korea, Japanese companies Inpex and ENEOS, PetroChina, Thailand's PTT, Shell, Total and Vitol.