Mideast War Spurs Tweak to Oil Benchmark With Hormuz Shut Off

A Middle East oil benchmark that’s typically used to price the bulk of crude supply from across the region has been tweaked again, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz stymies flows and roils trading.

The process for pricing the regional Dubai benchmark, set by S&P Global Energy, was changed on Friday to encourage more tradable deliveries as a supply crunch hits the region. Under the move, a so-called pricing offset for Abu Dhabi’s flagship Murban crude has been suspended, Platts, a unit of S&P Global Energy, said in a March 20 subscriber note. That means that the price of Murban won’t be allowed to drop below Dubai’s level during a daily assessment, encouraging supply of that particular grade if Murban goes up.