“Link are one of the most active brokers of North American physical crude with unique insight into the U.S. Gulf Coast physical crude oil market. Pricing for crude oil on the water in the Gulf Coast has never been more relevant to global oil markets.”
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. has launched real-time physical crude pricing from Link Data Services in cooperation with Link Crude Resources, one of the largest brokers of physical North American crude, in a move that further establishes ICE within the Gulf Coast.
Bringing additional transparency to the North American crude market, ICE is launching live calculations of the volume weighted average price for 12 grades of oil traded in the Permian; Cushing, Oklahoma; Houston and Louisiana Gulf Coast, including WTI in Midland and Houston.
Unique insight into the U.S. Gulf Coast physical crude oil market
Jeff Barbuto, Global Head of Oil Markets at ICE, said: “ICE has always been focused on bringing transparency to energy markets. Link are one of the most active brokers of North American physical crude with unique insight into the U.S. Gulf Coast physical crude oil market. Pricing for crude oil on the water in the Gulf Coast has never been more relevant to global oil markets. We’re excited to work with Link and other industry participants to bring new transparency to the market.”
Scott Nelson, Commercial Director at Link Data, commented: “Since its inception, Link’s goal has been to provide market participants with reliable price transparency for the physical crude market. With the expansion of the Brent complex to include Midland WTI, the demand for streaming North American crude pricing data has become truly global. Utilizing ICE’s global energy network, this real-time transaction information and pricing data will reach a wider and more diverse segment of the energy industry than ever before. This increased transparency, particularly as other brokers join this initiative, will further add to the utility of these instruments for the global trading community.”
Midland WTI American Gulf Coast futures contract (HOU) underpinned by over 4 million barrels per day
One of the crude grades assessed by Link Data is WTI at the Magellan East Houston terminal (also referred to as MEH-WTI). In January 2022,
ICE’s Midland WTI American Gulf Coast futures contract (HOU), a benchmark for pricing Midland quality WTI on the Gulf Coast, began trading in January 2022. The HOU contract is attracting liquidity as buyers and sellers in the Houston market start to price their barrels off HOU. The HOU contract reached a single day volume record of 12,265 contracts and an open interest record of 10,014 contracts on October 18, 2022. A total of 20,377 contracts have gone to physical delivery through the contract since January 2022, equivalent to 20 million barrels.
HOU is underpinned by over 4 million barrels per day of supply capacity from Midland into Houston and deliverable at the Magellan East Houston (MEH) and Enterprise Crude Houston (ECHO) terminals. One of the crude grades assessed by Link Data is WTI at the Magellan East Houston terminal (MEH).
