The Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) is witnessing a remarkable growth in trading volumes of Oman crude this year, which was 11 per cent higher during the first four months of 2021 compared to last year.

In a statement to Oman News Agency, Raid bin Khalifa al Salami, managing director of the DME, said that more than 100mn barrels of Oman crude was traded at the exchange during April (for June delivery) at a rate of 4.8mn barrels per day. He added that the DME announced the delivery of more than 10mn barrels of Oman crude for the month of June 2021.

Salami pointed out that Oman crude has been associated for decades with the price index of Middle East oils and has been used as a reference oil by various national oil companies in the region since the 1980s. He further said that Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain have been using Oman crude benchmark to price their oil exported to the Asian markets.

The Dubai Mercantile Exchange recently launched the Alternative Crude Ecosystem (ACE), a new bilateral oil trading platform to enable participants to trade multiple crude grades through the exchange.

The DME’s new trading platform is available for all participants.