Fundamentals of Petroleum Trading

Book excerpt: Until as recently as the late 1970s, the main channel for oil distribution was the integrated system of the major oil companies, while the volume of spot trading was limited to roughly 5 percent of the total oil trade. Today, spot and spot-related deals account for 80 to 85 percent of internationally traded petroleum, and have ushered in a new era of petroleum trading. In this work, Hossein Razavi and Fereidun Fesharaki offer a detailed study of the workings and issues surrounding today's oil trading market as they apply to all parties involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of petroleum. They provide a complete description of petroleum spot markets, futures, and options trading, and their interlinkages with contract sales. Razavi and Fesharaki cover a wide range of topics, and challenge the generally accepted view that spot and futures trading have wrested the power of price setting away from OPEC. They claim that prices are still determined by supply, which OPEC continues to influence. The book is divided into four sections, beginning with an overview of recent developments in spot, futures, and contract trading. Section two provides an analysis of spot and spot-related deals, while the third section describes the mechanics, organization, and evolution of petroleum futures markets and options trading. The work concludes with an in-depth section on interlinkages, examining the interactions among various segments of the market, including spot and futures trading, petroleum stock building, and OPEC. This book will be a valuable resource tool for libraries as well as a wide range of users, from oil industry professionals and financial analysts to students of energy-related topics.