SUBSCRIBER NOTE: Platts confirms change to USAC fuel oil MOC cutoff time

Platts confirms that it will push back the cutoff time for providing bids and offers for publication in the US Atlantic Coast physical residual fuel oil Market on Close assessment process to 1:45 pm Central Time, 15 minutes later than the current cutoff time of 1:30 pm Central Time.

This change follows a proposal to change the cutoff published on December 5, and will take effect on Monday, January 5, 2015.

The proposed change follows a reduction in April 2014 in the volume size assessed by Platts in the USAC market to 50,000 barrels from the previous 120,000 barrels.

The current 1:30 pm CT cutoff for MOC positions was designed to give market participants more time to react to bids and offers and calculate the logistics involved in a potential trade. The move to a smaller volume size has made this additional time unnecessary, and will align the timings in the USAC fuel oil market with those of other markets with similar batch sizes.