Workshop

Wednesday 10th October 2012 - Optional Post Conference workshop
9:00am 1:00pm

Commodity Price Benchmarking

Course overview
Iron ore as a commodity is going through a period of tremendous change. The measurement of its spot market value and how long-term contracts are priced continues to evolve. At the same time a derivative market for iron ore is also emerging with paper contracts enabling investment in iron ores future value. All these changes require robust physical price discovery. This workshop studies different types of price discovery used in commodity markets and seeks to show a path iron ore might take as its valuation and pricing continues to evolve.

Course Program
1. Introduction
2. Commodity price benchmarking & price discovery
3. From annual to floating prices; Oil market case study
4. The emergence of derivatives; futures, swaps, options and clearing
5. Forward curve versus forecasting
6. Concepts; transparency, convergence, robustness, underlying and basis risk
7. Summary overview

About your leader
Francis Browne, Editorial Director, Price Group, Platts
Francis Browne is an editorial director working in the price group at Platts, responsible for market reporting and oversight in many markets including steel and metals. He joined Platts in 2006 to head their steel initiative as global managing editor of the newly created newsletter Steel Markets Daily, now being integrated with Steel Business Briefings (SBB) publications into the steel group at Platts. He led the team that launched the IODEX daily iron ore assessments in 2008, which is now used widely as the basis for iron ore contract pricing. Before Platts he spent more than 20 years trading steel and raw materials internationally, after graduating in 1984 with a degree in Economics from the University of Northumbria, UK.