Platts to implement USGC waterborne changes on September 1

Following a period of industry feedback, Platts has decided to implement the following changes to its US Gulf Coast light ends waterborne assessment methodology on September 1, 2009:

a) change its US Gulf Coast gasoline and distillates waterborne assessment period from the current 5-15 days forward from date of publication to 10-20 days forward from date of publication;

b) use the appropriate underlying basis for its waterborne assessments to line up with the delivery window. For any market information reported as a differential versus the pipeline market, Platts will use the prevailing pipeline basis during the 10-20 days forward timing period. For any market information reported as a differential versus the NYMEX, Platts will use the appropriate NYMEX contract basis prevailing at 3:15 pm Eastern Time.

c) include a minimum 42 cetane number for No.2 oil (heating oil) waterborne assessment;

d) expand the geographical loading points to include Beaumont/Port Arthur and Lake Charles, in addition to the greater Houston area, which includes Texas City. All loading points beyond Port Arthur, greater Houston area and Lake Charles, including Corpus Christi, New Orleans and Pascagoula would be normalized, if needed, back to the three main loading points; As this is a FOB market, market participants bid and offer for one of the three ports -- Beaumont/Port Arthur, Lake Charles, or Houston. The seller nominates the terminal in that given port, five days before the first day of the laycan. The buyer then nominates the vessel and the loading dates within the three-day laycan, pending terminal acceptance.

e) Platts is defining its waterborne assessments to reflect a minimum volume of 50,000 barrels to a maximum of 125,000 barrels.

Please send comments to Esa Ramasamy at esa_ramasamy@platts.com; David Ruisard, david_ruisard@platts.com and a cc to pricegroup@platts.com.