US debottlenecking sparks spread wars

摘要

New York—The rapid pace of new US crude production has traders scrambling to assess constantly moving crude differentials—as supporting infrastructure grows and changes the dynamics. Not long ago, there was too much crude in Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point of the NYMEX sweet crude futures contract. This had traders constantly eyeing the spread, or price difference, between US benchmark WTI and North Sea Brent, pushing WTI from its traditional premium over Brent to a discount where it has held for several years.