Overview

The Argus Mars price assessment is the pivotal Americas medium sour crude benchmark and is the most actively traded sour crude market in the region. The Argus Mars price assessment is widely used in hedging, term contracts, mark-to-market calculations and in pricing spot deals.

Price assessment details

What are the advantages of the Argus Mars price assessment?

Mars is a significant component of the Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI™) price assessment, a volume-weighted average of deals for three US deepwater sour crudes. The ASCI price assessment is the reference price for all term sales of Saudi, Kuwaiti and Iraqi crude to the US. The total volume of trade linked to the ASCI price assessment regularly exceeds 2mn b/d. Learn more about the ASCI price assessment. The expanding significance of Mars has led to a rapidly growing paper market settled against the Argus Mars price assessment and listed on CME.

The Argus Mars price assessment represents spot trade in the US Gulf medium sour crude blend arriving on the Mars pipeline at dedicated storage caverns at Clovelly, Louisiana. The Argus Mars price assessment is a volume-weighted average of all spot Mars deals throughout the trading day on a differential basis to WTI at Cushing. Argus also publishes Mars price assessment along the forward curve, aligned to the Nymex settlement.

Who uses this price assessment?

The Argus Mars crude price assessment is useful for buyers or sellers of domestic medium sour crude on the US Gulf coast and represents one of the key crude streams in the region. The Argus Mars price assessment is a key international price in the Atlantic basin and drives trading throughout North America.

Key price assessments

Argus prices are recognised by the market as trusted and reliable indicators of the real market value. Explore some of our most widely used and relevant price assessments.