300
39
th
Annual Report
1.5 Development of Crude Oil Pricing Stages in Global Markets
The study primarily aims at highlighting the development of the stages
of crude oil pricing in global markets.
The study is divided into 4 main parts.
Part 1
addresses the announced
price stage, which commenced in the US from the outset of modern oil
industry. In the Middle East region, application of announced prices
commenced officially in the 1950s, and continued up to the end of 1973.
Part 2
tackles OPEC and official prices, i.e. the stage which began by
fully transferring the pricing decision from companies to OPEC.
Part
3
highlights the market stage, which began with OPEC abandoning the
official pricing, and is continuing to the present time.
Part 4
reviews the
potential future price trends.
The main conclusions of the study:
Reconsidering the current pricing system does not necessarily
•
mean a return to fixed pricing system. Yet, it means developing
and improving within the current general framework, based on
market prices.
To face the criticism to the current pricing systemof reference oils,
•
and the problems it suffers, it is expected to continue the present
procedures of adding new types of oils, as much as possible, to
the currently used reference oils, so as to alleviate the production
decline and justify continued use as reference oils.
The increasing concentration of member countries on
•
Asian markets necessitates constant close monitoring of the
developments in these markets, and their implications for the
pricing, which may represent a problem in the future in light of
the growing demand for oil, especially that the pricing of oils
imported to those markets plays a vital role in pricing the region’s
imports of liquefied natural gas, which is linked with oil pricing.
The increasing importance of member countries, especially the
•
large producing countries in the Arabian Gulf region, in global
oil markets in the future, necessarily means the increasing
