SUBSCRIBER NOTE: Platts proposes to assess NWE benzene month-ahead contract price

Platts proposes to publish a month-ahead indicator for the European benzene contract price on a daily basis effective October 3 in order to bring greater transparency to the contract market and to allow manufacturers and consumers a clearer idea of future prices. Platts will use a moving five-day average of its month-ahead spot benzene price. The month of the CP indicator would roll on the first of each month. Platts will use the M1 CIF ARA benzene spot price [AAOQQ00] in its calculations in the last five working days of the month. All other time the contract price indicator would be calculated on the basis of M2 CIF ARA price [AAOQR00]. Platts has backchecked the quantitative model and found that in 84% of all settlements in the past five years the model predicted values that were within Eur10/mt of the industry-negotiated CP price on the day the latter settled and the average price difference between the indicator and the CP price was $1.36/mt. Please send any comments and queries to pl_petchems_ln@spglobal.com by July 31, 2016. 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.