Shell Says Russia Oil Must Be Considered for Brent Benchmark
- Market should discuss including Russian crude in global marker
- Says difficult to add more North Sea oil to current yardstick
Oil workers operate drill sections while working on the drilling floor beneath the travelling block, right, on a derrick operated by Salym Petroleum in Salym, Khanty-Mansi autonomous region, Russia, on Tuesday, July 2, 2013. Gazprom Neft and Shell have begun exploring for tight oil in Siberia within their Salym Petroleum Development project, while state-run competitor OAO Rosneft has brought in Exxon Mobil Corp., Statoil ASA and Eni SpA to develop shale and offshore projects.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesRoyal Dutch Shell Plc, the world’s largest oil trader, said the time has come to debate using Russian crude to help determine the global Brent benchmark, in what would be the most radical shift in how European prices are calculated since the 1970s.
Mike Muller, the head of crude trading at Shell, said at the Platts Global Crude Oil Summit in London that he wants a discussion about calculating the price in Europe using not just oil pumped in the North Sea -- as has been the case since the 1970s -- but potentially including Russian crude and even grades pumped in West Africa and the Caspian Sea basin.