Recall the disparity between the WTI and Brent futures quotes? Well read this:
SIGNS OF SHIFT AWAY FROM WTI
By Javier Blas in London
Financial Times
January 18 2009 23:33
Oil traders are quietly pricing some of their deals away from the West Texas Intermediate contract, traditionally the world’s most important oil benchmark, as it is being distorted by record inventories at its landlocked delivery point. The move is a setback for the benchmark that since the launch of the Nymex WTI futures in the early 1980s has dominated physical and financial oil markets. The surge in oil inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma, where WTI is delivered into America’s pipeline system, has depressed its value not only against other global benchmarks, such as Brent, but also against other domestic US crudes. Julius Walker, an oil market analyst at the International Energy Agency in Paris, said there was "anecdotal evidence" of traders moving away from WTI and "doing deals based on other US oil benchmarks".
Anyone wonder if the oil inventory increase at Cushing is paper oil?
