ENERGY MARKETS
Crude oil is a naturally occurring liquid composed mostly of hydrogen and carbon. It is usually found underground but can also be found above ground in oil seeps or tar pits. It is used to produce fuel for cars, trucks, airplanes, boats and trains, asphalt for roads, lubricants, plastics for toys, bottles, food wrap and computers.
Barrels from an area in which the crude oil’s molecular characteristics have been determined and the oil has been classified are used as pricing references throughout the world. Some of the common reference crude oils are:
West Texas Intermediate (WTI), a very high-quality, sweet, light oil delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma for North American oil.
Brent Blend, comprising 15 oils from fields in the Brent and Ninian systems in the East Shetland Basin of the North Sea.
Dubai-Oman, used as benchmark for Middle East sour crude oil flowing to the Asia-Pacific region.
Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1, which are produced to a standardized international specification. The only other jet fuel commonly used in civilian turbine-engine powered aviation is Jet B, which is used for its enhanced cold-weather performance.
Natural gas is a gas composed mainly by methane. Before it can be used as fuel it must undergo a process of purification in which other elements such as ethane, propane, butane, pentanes, and higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, elemental sulfur, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and sometimes helium and nitrogen are removed.
Natural gas is used in the generation of electricity generated by power plants; in homes for cooking and heating purposes; for transportation as an alternative to gasoline and diesel; in the production of ammonia for fertilizers; in the manufacture of plastics, paints, etc.
Natural Gas futures are traded on the NYMEX under ticker symbol NG in U.S dollars and cents per mmBtu.
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock normally found in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. Coal is composed primarily of carbon with variable quantities of other elements: sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
Coal has multiple uses. It is used to generate electricity, in metallurgical applications (manufacture of steel), residential and commercial space heating, in pencils (graphite) and as a lubricant. Types of coal ranked from low to high (based on their level of organic metamorphism) include: peat, lignite, bituminous coal, sub-bituminous coal, anthracite, and graphite.
Coal is a exchange-traded commodity. Central Appalachian coal (US) is traded at the NYMEX and at the ICE Europe . Richards Bay coal (Africa), CSX Coal (US), Powder River Basin coal (US), Rotterdam coal (Europe), Newcastle coal (Asia) and FOB Indonesia Sub-bituminous coal (Asia) are traded at the ICE Europe.