Oman Crude
Oman crude is one of the few Middle Eastern crudes to be freely traded on the spot market and the first and only crude to be traded on futures exchange.
Prior to November 2001, the price of Oman’s single export blend (“Omani Blend”) was calculated on a monthly basis as an outright price derived from Dubai crude pricing signal, and the Oman Blend was sold on a retroactive basis.
As of November 2001, Oman Blend, with similar grade quality to Dubai, was added to the basket of Platts Dubai, as a deliverable grade.
In November 2006, Oman’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals announced that Oman would adopt forward pricing of its crude oil based on Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), the first crude oil futures contract designed to serve the crude pricing needs of the Middle East and Asia markets, and traded on DME.
In June 2007, the Ministry announced its first Official Selling Price for August loading barrels, marking the first ever exchange based pricing for Oman Crude Oil, and paving the way for DME Oman to become the price benchmark for crude oil produced in the Middle East and exported to the East of Suez market. Years later, DME Oman was added to the pricing mechanism of Dubai (2009), Saudi Aramco (2018), Bahrain (2018) and Kuwait (2020), and the Oman futures contract is now pricing more than 5 million barrels per day.