Price reporting agencies in shipping
Platts, Argus and their assessments as derivative settlement references: the assessment method, the IOSCO PRA principles, and their regulatory status.
A price reporting agency publishes assessments of prices in markets that have no exchange, and in shipping those assessments settle real money: bunker derivatives settle against marine fuel assessments, and at least one listed tanker freight contract settles against a clean tanker assessment rather than against a Baltic index.
The assessment method is not a survey of transactions but a structured judgement made to a published methodology within a defined window. The full article will cover how a marine fuel assessment is made and at what time, the window and the deal-reporting rules, the IOSCO Principles for Oil Price Reporting Agencies and the assurance engagements run against them, the regulatory position of a PRA against that of a benchmark administrator, and what happens to a contract when an assessment is discontinued.