Platts to update basis for ANS differential to ICE Brent

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, will change the basis of the Alaska North Slope differential to the ICE Brent calendar-month average to be the front month ICE Brent settlement during the delivery month, effective Aug. 1.

This follows a proposal note published June 18 and available here: https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/our-methodology/subscriber-notes/061824-platts-proposes-to-update-basis-for-ans-differential-to-ice-brent

Platts currently publishes ANS as an outright price and as differentials to the NYMEX WTI CMA and the ICE Brent CMA.

The change will make the ICE Brent CMA basis the front-month settle of ICE Brent during the delivery month. For example, in August the front-month ICE Brent futures will be October and the ICE Brent CMA basis will be the daily settlement of the October ICE Brent contract.

The ICE Brent CMA basis is currently a weighted average of the full prompt month futures value during the delivery month and one day of the following month to exclude using expiration day of the prompt month futures. Currently the values of those futures months come from the Platts assessments of those futures contracts, not the settlement.

There will be no change to the calculated basis of the WTI CMA basis. The WTI CMA is calculated from a weighted average of the settles from the two front-month contracts during the delivery month. For example, in August the front-month WTI contracts are September and October NYMEX WTI.

This change will more closely align pricing for the ANS differential with market norms.

There will be no change to the name or appearance of the assessments in pages or publications.

ANS is published as an outright price under the code PCAAD00 and the ICE Brent CMA differential is published under code AANSA00. The assessment appears on Platts Global Alert pages 210 and 214, and in the publications North American Crude & Products Scan, Oilgram Price Report and Latin Wire.

Please send any comments or feedback to americas_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.