Platts clarifies publishing guidelines for May/June 2023 cash BFOE full cargo spreads

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, clarifies that it will only publish cash BFOE full cargo spread bids and offers for 600,000 barrels of May cash BFOE versus 700,000 barrels of June cash BFOE in its Market on Close assessment process ahead of the March 31 expiry of ICE Brent futures.

Platts understands that Brent market participants will trade full cash cargo spreads of 600,000/700,000 barrels for May/June on fallback day and expiry day of the May futures contract. In this scenario, the seller of the May contract would be expected to sell another 100,000 barrels of ICE Brent futures to offset the volume difference between the May and June contracts,

Platts will also publish bids/offers for full 600,000 barrel cargoes of May cash BFOE on fallback day and expiry day. In line with its established methodology, Platts will not publish bids or offers for cash BFOE partials of the M1 (May) contract on fallback day and expiry day.

Publication via manual headlines:

Any bids/offers for 600,000/700,000 barrel cargo spreads in the Platts MOC should be submitted for publication by communication with the North Sea ICE Chat account: Platts_Crude_NorthSea. The manual headlines will be published on PGA/PCR 003.

Please send all comments to europe_crude@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com.

For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing.

Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.