Rosneft offers changes in exchange trade to cut fuel speculation

MOSCOW, Nov 27 (PRIME) -- Russian oil major Rosneft has suggested changes in the order of exchange trade together with the Saint Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX) that would cut speculative trade operations in fuel, the company said in a statement late on Monday.

“Rosneft is notifying that together with the SPIMEX and the Federal Antimonopoly Service is trying to improve oil products exchange trade comprehensively. Jointly with the exchange, the company has worked out an array of measures aimed at limiting the amount of speculative operations during the exchange trade,” the statement read.

The company and the exchange think oil product producers should participate in trade proportionally to their share in the combined output. Rosneft also suggested higher rates of cash collateral for fuel traders and higher forfeit payments for failures to implement deals, as well as higher payments for bids on resources that didn’t lead to purchases and fines for termination of exchange contracts by agreement of the parties.

On November 15, participants of the SPIMEX said that Rosneft suspended sales of gasoline and diesel fuel. A representative of the company told PRIME on November 19 that Rosneft had resumed two-sided transactions to sell oil products directly to large industrial consumers and gasoline filling stations.

Rosneft later blamed commodity traders for its decision, saying that the traders create conditions for non-market ways to form prices, and that a non-transparent structure of some of commodity exchange deals allows unscrupulous market players to benefit from the additional obligations of vertically-integrated companies.

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