In order to be considered in a Platts price assessment, bids and offers must be incremental and executable, and all transactions are immediately verified.
The EC also said that it had concerns that some companies may have sought to increase the influence of its price inflations by "preventing others from participating in the price assessment process, with a view to distorting published prices".
The size will for 2,500 MMBtu with a monthly cash future settled against the Platts LNG Gulf Coast Marker price assessment.
The publishers offer price assessments for oil, natural gas, electricity, nuclear power, coal, emissions, petrochemical, shipping and metals markets.
This covers the carbon-dioxide market in Europe, and the sulphur-dioxide and nitrogen-oxide markets in America, publishing daily price assessments for the leading contracts.
"We are not aware of any evidence that our price assessments are not reflective of market value," it says, before declaring that it stands behind its method.Money in movementYet such price-setting mechanisms have come in for criticism.
We want to assure The Economist's readers, our subscribers and the market at large that, contrary to your publication's suppositions, our price assessments for the Urals market, both then and now, reflect the realities of the global marketplace, not the alleged intentions of one company.LARRY NEAL President, Platts New York.
If not, there will be no takers.Platts MOC price-assessment process is transparent.
There was no abnormal trading activity within Platts' Urals Market-on-Close (MOC) price-assessment process, and there is no evidence of such.
Any company that bids or offers in our price-assessment process faces the marketplace as a whole, and will find willing counterparts only when those bids or offers are at market value.
The "inference and speculation" you admitted ("Riddles, mysteries and enigmas", May 5th) are hardly a sound basis for impugning the integrity of a price-assessment process that has well served the oil markets for over 20 years.You have got it wrong.
