Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's Murban crude futures to be listed on Intercontinental Exchange

Executive Summary

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), an operator of global exchanges & clearinghouses and provider of data and listings services, announced that it would launch a new exchange, ICE Futures Abu Dhabi (IFAD). The exchange will host the world's first futures contracts based on Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's (ADNOC's) Murban crude oil. IFAD and ICE Murban futures are slated for launch in early 2020, subject to regulatory approvals, and will seek to rival well-established light crude oil benchmarks WTI and Brent.

ADNOC is one of the world's leading diversified energy and petrochemicals groups with a daily output of about 3 million barrels of oil and 10.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. ADNOC along with nine of the world's largest energy traders have collaborated with the ICE to set up the world's first Murban crude oil futures contracts. Oil majors namely, BP, Total, Inpex, Vitol, Shell, Petrochina, Korea's GS Caltex, Japan's JXTG and Thailand's PTT have agreed to become partners in this new exchange. However, the exact split of stakes in the new exchange has not been decided yet.