Six Popularly Traded Crude Oil Grades to Help Purchasers Measure Cost of Emissions Offsets
NEW YORK, June 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — S&P Global Commodity Insights, the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodity and energy markets, has launched the oil industry’s first carbon intensity measures for all six crude grades forming the global Brent benchmark, including Dated Brent and BFOE (Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, plus Troll and WTI Midland1). The carbon intensity for these grades will be published in kilogram-per-CO2-equivalent per barrel (kgCO2eq/b) and makes Brent the first carbon-measured global benchmark allowing purchasers of crude grades to evaluate the cost of emission offsets in their supply chains.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, will publish daily the carbon-associated price premiums of Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, Troll and WTI Midland. These will build on the October-2021-launched, S&P Global Commodity Insights field-by-field oil carbon intensity measures and associated price premiums assessments. Over 100 oil fields are now covered, including those that underpin the six crude grades of the benchmark Brent complex.
Deb Ryan, Head of Low Carbon Commodities, S&P Global Commodity Insights, said: “By adding these six grades that form the global Brent benchmark, the industry now has not only its oil benchmark, but a carbon intensity measure as well. Carbon intensity measures are currently used by the industry to offset emissions, but over time is expected to become an attribute of the traded commodity, like API viscosity and sulfur standards for oils.”
As companies look to offset and/or understand the emissions from all their activities, having a crude-grade carbon intensity measure is the next step in the supply chain for downstream purchasers of crude.
Paula VanLaningham, Global Head of Carbon Pricing at S&P Global Commodity Insights, said: “By taking a bottoms-up view of the carbon intensity, understanding the carbon price and the cost to offset the emissions, purchasers of crude grades can now start to understand the cost of emissions in their supply chain.”
The S&P Global Commodity Insights upstream carbon intensity calculations measure the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from well production to the storage