Urals oil

Urals oil (in short: the Urals ) is the most important for Russia crude oil, which is used as a reference ( " Benchmark" ) for the oil trade and export. Urals oil is a mixture ( "blend" ) from the eponymous oil from the Urals and the Volga region, which is difficult, and very high boiling sulphurous, with a light, low-sulfur oil from Western Siberia ( Siberian Light). The lighter, West Siberian oil is produced in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, the heavy sour today predominantly in Tatarstan. Urals oil is carried through pipelines to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, and from there exported by tanker. The other export route is the Druzhba pipeline to Western Europe. Urals is a medium- heavy crude oil with high sulfur content.

Main producers of Urals are Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft. Less important are Lukoil, TNK -BP and Tatneft. 2012 were exported from Russia about five million barrels a day, the majority of which was the Urals. The main customers are European refineries as Hellenic and INA as well as the belonging to Shell and Total refineries.

The most important dealer of the Urals were in 2012, Glencore, Vitol and Gunvor. At the Moscow Stock Exchange and RTS of the Urals Oil Futures Contract is traded. The futures contract on the Urals price is traded in USD per BBL, the settlement is made in cash. Calculation basis is the spread between the determined Platts Urals spot price and the ICE Brent Index. Platts determined on a number of Urals price indices for delivery in the Mediterranean and North West Europe. The main indices are the Urals Med ( CIF Augusta), Urals ex - Novorossiisk (FOB), Urals Rotterdam (CIF Rotterdam) and Urals ex - Baltic Sea ( FOB Butinge, Primorsk or Danzig). At the NYMEX Urals under the name of REBCO ( "Russian Export Blend Crude Oil" ) being traded, delivery is Primorsk.