Will Oilprice.Com Add WTI Midland To Its Front Page Banner? June 10, 2022

Announcement, link here:

ARGUS WTI Midland price assessment: link here.

The Argus WTI Midland price assessment represents Permian-quality WTI sold for physical delivery in the prompt month at the Enterprise and Plains terminals at Midland, Texas. It is the most actively traded and transparent price assessment published by any pricing service for WTI at Midland, and it reflects the price of unblended “Midland-quality” WTI at a point near the fields where the crude is produced.

Typically, more than 1mn b/d of prompt physical transactions for “Midland-quality WTI”, deliverable at the Midland terminals, are reported to Argus in each trade month. 

That equates to more than 500 trades each month. 

This compares with about 100 spot physical cargo trades per year for all the grades comprising the Dated Brent price basket (Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk and Troll) – about 50 times more pricing points for WTI Midland than for Dated Brent.

WTI, McKinsey, link here.

WTI is a light sweet crude oil produced in the interior of the US.

For many years, WTI was considered a global benchmark crude. This role has largely been displaced by Brent, but WTI remains an important regional benchmark for North America.

There are three major locations where WTI prices are quoted:

• Midland - This is the price point closest to the actual production of WTI. It is one of the main gathering points for WTI in West Texas before it is sent by pipeline to the Gulf Coast, Cushing, or nearby refineries

• Cushing - Cushing is an intermediate transportation point where pipelines from producing regions (West Texas, Canada, Oklahoma) and to refining regions (Gulf Coast and Midwest) meet. The Cushing blend of WTI is also called Domestic Sweet Blend (DSW)

• Houston (Magellan East) - At this location on the Gulf Coast, crude arrives by pipeline from Cushing and Midland, and it is shipped by pipe to Gulf Coast refiners or exported by tanker to the international market. WTI blends in Houston are also called MEH

WTI (and similar US domestic crudes) are primarily consumed by US refiners across the Gulf Coast and Midwest regions. WTI is also exported to the international market, largely through the ports of Corpus Christi and Houston.

WTI Midland, Platts, link here.

Following extensive consultation and proposal periods, Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, will reflect cargoes of WTI Midland crude oil in its Dated Brent crude oil benchmark, with effect from June 2023 cargo deliveries. This inclusion will extend across the Brent complex, including Dated Brent and its related components, Cash BFOE, and all related instruments. Platts will maintain the assessment of the Dated Brent benchmark and Cash BFOE as FOB North Sea values, with Cash BFOE methodology to be finalized in the coming months.