New Crude Contract May Strengthen China's Position in Oil Market

Last week, media reported that China could launch its own global crude oil futures contract priced in yuan in October.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — New Chinese crude contract will hardly compete with traditional benchmarks of Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI), however, it will help Beijing to assert itself in the oil market, the Saxo Bank head of commodity strategy told Sputnik on Tuesday.

Shanghai crude futures contract is expected to become the first Chinese one allowing participation of the international investors.

“With the latest announcement of an oil future traded in Yuan China continues to assert its role as a major player in the global commodities,” Ole Sloth Hansen said.

He added that at this stage, however, it is not a threat to Brent or WTI crude since “the deep volume and number of active traded futures contracts on both of the current benchmarks are what financial as well as commercial traders require” and they will not “jump into a new contract in a currency which is still not trading freely.”

“The Chinese contract will probably succeed to attract attention from commercial and local traders but it will primarily be traded as a spread to the current benchmarks,” the senior manager said.