Deliberations on which benchmark presents the best opportunities to trade just never seem to stop. The gradual decline of all erstwhile champions of North Sea output champions has compelled pricing agencies to include newer and newer grades into the Brent basket to ensure the traded benchmark’s liquidity. The recent maintenance of the Forties pipeline system, with the UK grade being the largest stream within the Brent price-setting barrel pool, has rekindled speculation that pricing transparency requires substantial volumes, which can only come about by physically extending the basket. Despite being Europe’s largest producing oilfield now, at some point assumed to amount to more than third of Norway’s total output, Johan Sverdrup has been an unlikely candidate to join the ranks of BFOET grades, yet it is indeed the Norwegian grade that is believed to be the prime candidate. The issue of Brent liquidity has haunted reporting agencies for quite […]