The Murban crude futures contract launched on Monday the key contract of the new Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Futures Abu Dhabi (IFAD) oil exchange, offering a potential rival benchmark for trading Middle East crude.
The contract was priced at $63.93 per barrel as of 0100 GMT with 2,132 lots traded, ICE said on Twitter. Each lot is 1,000 barrels.
The ICE, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) and partners including international oil majors back the Abu Dhabi-based IFAD.
The UAE said this step represents a significant milestone for Abu Dhabi and the country in its jubilee year.
“It is the latest step in ADNOC’s shift to focus more on markets and customers.”
By making Murban a freely traded crude, similar to Brent or West Texas Intermediate (WTI), customers have better price transparency, flexibility to hedge and manage risks and increased access to Murban crude.
For ADNOC, its flagship crude grade becomes more available to a widest segment of the participating and active players in the global market.
Alongside ICE and ADNOC, nine of the world’s largest energy companies and traders joined IFAD as founding partners.
Earlier this month, ADNOC announced that its Murban, Upper Zakum, Das and Umm Lulu crude grades will be freely-traded as of June, which would contribute to increase their attractiveness to customers and buyers around the world.
Discovered in 1958, Murban has played a pivotal role in the UAE’s sustained economic development process.
The new step will reinforce the UAE and Abu Dhabi’s status as a leading global energy hub and underscores ADNOC’s central role as a catalyst to empower the UAE’s economic ambitions.
Murban has an output of about two million barrels per day (bpd), according to ICE. It currently accounts for around 50 percent of the UAE’s total production capacity and is expected to increase the production to more than 2.5 million barrels per day by 2030.
