The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threatens the dominance of the world’s most heavily traded oil futures contract. It is the main contract traded on Nymex.


The move reveals the growing discontent of Riyadh and its US refinery customers with WTI after the price of the price of the benchmark became separated from the global oil market this year.

The surge in oil inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma, where WTI is delivered into America’s pipeline system, depressed the value of the WTI against other global benchmarks, throwing the global oil market into disarray.