The Mcgraw-hill Companies, Inc.

Jorge Eduardo Montepeque

A method of assessing a market price of a benchmark grade of a commodity includes artificially injecting additional volumes of the benchmark grade into the marketplace to thereby increase the market activity upon which the assessment is based. By increasing the market activity upon which the benchmark assessment is based, problems associated with having a small number of market events for assessing the benchmark price, such as price volatility, may be avoided. Additional volumes of the benchmark grade may be artificially injected into the marketplace by including, in the assessment of the benchmark price, observations of market events involving one or more alternative, non-benchmark grades of the commodity. Alternatively, or in addition, additional volumes of the benchmark grade may be artificially injected into the marketplace by permitting a seller offering cargoes of the benchmark grade of the commodity to actually deliver a cargo of one or more alternative, non-benchmark grades of the commodity in satisfaction of a contract for sale of the benchmark grade.

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New Malden, United Kingdom

Jorge Eduardo Montepeque