Electronic platform offers live swap values, enhances transparency in key market
London 15 December 2022
Global energy and commodity price reporting agency Argus has successfully launched a real-time electronic price-discovery platform for contributors to its benchmark Eurobob (EBOB) gasoline price.
The proprietary Argus Open Markets (AOM) platform offers real-time transparency between 8:45am and 5:30pm daily and enables registered market participants to post bids and offers, and to initiate transactions, which are executed offscreen.
The platform has seen lively activity in listing bids and offers and transactions for the benchmark European gasoline grade since its launch last Wednesday.
The Argus Eurobob oxy barge price is the key gasoline benchmark in Europe and is used as the settlement basis for futures contracts listed by Ice and CME. The price represents the value of physical barges of E5 gasoline blendstock at Rotterdam prior to the addition of ethanol, which creates finished gasoline for retail sale.
In making market interactions visible in real time and on a single platform, Argus aims to increase market transparency for one of Europe’s most important commodity prices. A key innovation of the EBOB platform offering is a “first of kind” real-time swap value that displays live on the AOM screen, enabling traders to post swaps-related bids and offers with instantaneous knowledge of the resulting outright price.
This enables registered users of the AOM platform to see Eurobob market prices evolve in real time in a single venue. An electronic audit trail provides full visibility for compliance purposes of all bids, offers and initiated transactions.
“The Argus Eurobob price underpins gasoline trade in Europe,” Argus Media chairman and chief executive Adrian Binks said. “We take our stewardship of the benchmark seriously, and we consulted closely with market participants to develop an upgraded version of AOM that fits their trading needs by providing both real-time transparency and compliance benefits.”
Multiple commodities markets already use the transparency offered by AOM to facilitate trade. Since its launch in 2015, the platform has grown to provide a service to 20 disparate commodity markets, including those for European biofuels, European LPG and Asian paraxylene. In October, Argus launched AOM for long-range diesel cargoes (LR2), reflecting changing trade patterns in advance of European sanctions on Russian oil products supplies, which are scheduled to come into effect in February 2023.