CLARIFICATION NOTE: Publication of Forties crude cargo data in MOC during force majeure

Following the declaration of force majeure on certain contracts of Forties crude oil by pipeline operator Ineos on December 12, 2017, S&P Global Platts would like to clarify expectations around cargo loading date information published during Platts' North Sea Market on Close assessment process for the time that force majeure remains in place.

Platts will not publish bids and offers for individual Forties cargoes which are known to be subject to force majeure. To ensure these guidelines are met, Platts expects all participants in the North Sea crude oil MOC, when requested by Platts, to provide full clarity on loading dates for all Forties cargoes in the day's assessed physical range. In addition to all Forties cargoes loading between 10 days and one month from the date of assessment, this also includes all cargoes which have been deferred/advanced into or out of this range, and any cargoes which are subject to force majeure.

Platts will endeavor in the first instance to ask the original equity holder of the Forties cargo, as listed in the first loading program as published by Platts. But Platts also expects this information from any company which may reasonably be expected to have knowledge of a cargo's current loading dates.

In line with Platts' commitment to transparent and orderly price discovery, a timely response is expected to any such requests for current Forties cargo dates. A failure to meet Platts guidelines for such transparency may lead to a review of a company's participation in Platts MOC assessment processes. Such reviews are designed to help ensure that transactional information and other data inputs used as the basis for Platts price assessments are representative of market value on an ongoing basis.

As part of this commitment, Platts intends on a provisional basis to publish a daily updated version of the Forties loading schedule at 15:15 London time for the time the force majeure on Forties remains in force. Any program changes received by Platts after this schedule is made available will be published as updates on Platts Global Alert page 3, and as a manual headline on Platts eWindow.

Please send any comments and feedback 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.