by Laura Hurst , Javier Blas , and Rupert Rowling: 10 May 2017, 11:14 BST
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the world’s largest oil trader, said the time has come to debate using Russian crude to help determine the global Brent benchmark, in what would be the most radical shift in how European prices are calculated since the 1970s.
Mike Muller, the head of crude trading at Shell, told a Platts forum in London that he wants a discussion about calculating the price in Europe using not just crude oil pumped in the North Sea, as has been the case since the 1970s, but potentially including Russian crude and even grades pumped in West Africa, the Caspian Sea basin.