Spimex Eyes Espo Futures Launch Despite Urals Mishaps

摘要

The St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (Spimex) is gearing up to launch a futures contract this year for Russia’s Espo crude oil, which it hopes will become a new pricing benchmark for the Asia-Pacific market, based on supplies to the region of nearly 1 million barrels per day. Despite failing so far to achieve the targets for its Urals contract, which it is promoting as a European benchmark, Spimex believes it is crucial to launch the Espo instrument now to lure potential customers in the growing Asia-Pacific market.