Zarubezhneft sold an export oil lot in the form of an online-auction for the 1st time

Moscow, September 22 - Neftegaz.RU. The Russian oil and gas company Zarubezhneft has completed a tender for the sale of 300 000 tons of oil at the e-platform of the St.Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX).

The sale procedure has been conducted in the form of a 2-stage bid requests using the online-auction. Under results of the tender 3 lots of Urals grade export oil, 100 000 tons each, shall be delivered via Primorsk port in the IV Quarter of 2020.

Zarubezhneft has been using the services of the e-platform of the Mercantile Exchange since December 2014 selling oil under the results of 1-stage tenders in the form of closed collection of bids from the participants. During the whole time 27 procedures for the sale of crude oil for export in the total amount over 8.8 million tons have been completed.

This time the tender has been improved by inclusion of the 2nd open stage at which the anonymous participants were submitting their bids in real time to improve the final indicators of the 1st stage. The bidding between the 9 allowed buyers has been actually conducted in the form of an online-auction: they had the opportunity not only to submit their bids but also to see the changes of the price influenced by their competitors’ bid. It allowed Zarubezhneft to improve the premium to the pricing formula by 50%.

Major international traders and trading divisions of the international oil companies were among the participants of the tender, they have noted the maximum open and transparent nature of the bidding procedure.

“The 1st Russian experience of holding an auction for the Russian export oil at the e-platform of the mercantile exchange has shown its efficiency for the development of the fair market pricing – noted the Deputy Gen. Director of Zarubezhneft Denis Maximov, - We hope that it shall be a new step towards the development of independent national indicators for the main types of Russian fuel and energy goods.”

“The mercantile exchange continues to develop the mechanisms ensuring improvement of the Russian companies’ activities efficiency. We are glad that our proposals regarding the use of online-auctions tools for the purpose of selling Russian oil for export have been successfully implemented in our joint project with Zarubezhneft. The formation of the price for the actual oil lots at the e-auction on the basis of information on the actually made transactions is an important step in the development of the pricing system in the global oil market where Russia is one of the most significant participants”, - underlines the President of SPIMEX Alexey Rybnikov.

To read the news in Russian.