Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

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Such a steep increase in energy prices set off global inflation and led to deep economic hardship in much of the developed world. Although the embargo was ended in March 1974, oil prices remained elevated versus their previous level and volatility persisted. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 set off a second oil price shock, with oil prices doubling over 12 months to $39.50 a barrel.ssss1 Faced with this price volatility, businesses from airlines to utilities scrambled to hedge the cost of their oil. NYMEX started offering trading in futures contracts on home heating oil and gasoline to meet this demand.

In March 1983, NYMEX launched a futures contract on light sweet crude oil delivered to tanks located in Cushing, Oklahoma. This grade of oil, known as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), became a global standard for oil prices. The benefit of a standardised benchmark is that it serves as a reference against which other grades of oil can be priced and concentrates trading liquidity, so as to enable traders to transact large quantities of oil without causing major price swings. In 1988, the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London launched futures contracts on Brent Crude, a heavier grade of oil extracted from the North Sea. The IPE was acquired by the Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2001 and Brent has now overtaken WTI to become the benchmark used to price over three-quarters of the world's traded oil.