March WTI Midland into Dated Brent Performance: 19 cargoes delivered

Booming liquidity continues to characterize WTI Midland's inclusion in the Dated Brent basket with the grade enhancing strong trading activity across the five native North Sea crudes in the basket through March.

Platts continues to closely monitor performance on all these trades as part of its ongoing commitment to upholding the highest standards of integrity and transparency. Post deal tracking has revealed full performance eventually reached on all trades tracked to date.

Pricing

Midland's role in defining Dated Brent retreated through March assessments as the role of the other crudes in the basket advanced. Indeed, all six crudes in the Dated Brent basket defined the benchmark across at least one assessment day through March for the first time since WTI Midland's inclusion.

Widespread refinery maintenance in Europe and a sharp decline in demand softened differentials across the Dated Brent basket through March with the Dated Brent differential plunging to an eight-month low of minus 44 cents/b on March 27 vs the North Sea Dated Brent strip.

As key European refineries wound down for maintenance through April, the competitiveness of typically higher value crudes such as Troll and Oseberg increased, broadening the range of grades demonstrating value for the benchmark.

Liquidity

Trade liquidity was robust across the Dated Brent basket through March. Eight WTI Midland deals complemented strong trading activity across the other five crudes in the basket including trades for Oseberg, Troll and Brent Blend in addition to the usual plurality of bids and offers demonstrating value throughout the different grades in the basket.

US majors were notably active in the Platts MOC through March with ExxonMobil and Chevron appearing as market makers for one and two trades, respectively. The two companies have steadily increased their activity in the Platts MOC since Midland's inclusion, participating in a growing list of trades since May 2023, adding to an expanding string of new and returning participants.

Performance Tracking

Platts monitored performance on 19 WTI Midland CIF Rotterdam trades published in the Platts Dated Brent MOC process in February for March delivery. This post-deal tracking enables Platts to determine the actual performance of the participants in the trades and the validity of their inputs.

As part of this, Platts has reviewed various aspects of performance, including timeliness of nominations and eventual delivery, as well as published parameters of the trades, including quality and volume.

All of the 19 trades tracked were physically delivered to buyers. Physical conditions regarding logistics which are beyond the control of the seller or buyer may result in lateness, quality issues or conditions seen as a deviation from the original wording in the reported trade, for example late delivery/loading. As per Platts methodology, if a transaction becomes difficult, the party causing the issue must seek resolution including alternative loadings, qualities, dates, or book outs.

Platts also reviewed the quality of all cargoes, and the table below shows the minimum and maximum values of some key quality metrics during this timeframe. All cargoes that were eventually delivered to buyers met the specification.

The table linked shows the transactions that were monitored for performance in March: