Iraq to adopt Argus crude price index from April

Falah Al-Amri, head of the Iraq's Oil Marketing Co. has said that that oil sold to the US will be priced off the Argus Sour Crude Index starting in April, Bloomberg has reported. The marker will replace an index based on sweet crude contracts traded on Nymex Holdings Inc.'s New York Mercantile exchange. According to Argus Media, publisher of the marker more than 1.6 million barrels a day of Middle East crude shipments to the US are now priced off the sour crude index, which includes about 1 million barrels a day in exports from Saudi Arabia and more than 180,000 barrels a day from Kuwait. Iraq's move follows Saudi Arabia, which said in October it would adopt the Argus index.