Argus Extends And Completes Third Review Of Energy Benchmarks Process In Line With IOSCO PRA Requirements

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Oct 13, 2014, 08:05 ET

LONDON, Oct. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Global energy and commodity news and price reporting agency Argus has successfully completed an external assurance review of the policies and processes that it uses to establish price benchmarks for oil, thermal coal, coking coal, natural gas and biomass. These processes are designed to ensure compliance with the principles for price reporting agencies (PRAs) set out by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (the IOSCO PRA Principles).

Argus led the way in October 2013 with the first independent review of oil benchmarks and was the first agency to extend the IOSCO PRA Principles to non-oil benchmarks, which it did in January 2014. Argus has now brought oil and non-oil benchmarks onto the same assurance timeline and has conducted the "reasonable assurance" review that IOSCO now recommends.

Independent assurance provider PwC reviewed a detailed description of the policies and procedures designed and established by Argus to ensure compliance with the requirements of the IOSCO PRA Principles.

In its implementation report, published last month, IOSCO concluded that Argus and three other PRAs "have made good progress with regard to the PRA Principles." IOSCO said it was "clear that the implementation of the PRA Principles had support across the PRAs' business activities, from data collection supervision through to executive level management."

Argus Media chairman and chief executive Adrian Binks said: "Argus is glad to have completed successfully our third and extended review of our energy benchmarks, carried out by PwC. This demonstrates Argus' long-standing commitment to identifying and adopting best practice in commodity price reporting. We are proud to be leading the way on applying the IOSCO PRA Principles to energy and commodity price reporting and are also pleased that IOSCO has recognised our achievements."

The IOSCO PRA Principles were published in October 2012 and endorsed by the G20 in November 2012. They cover governance, control, quality, integrity and conflict management in relation to commodity benchmark price assessments published by PRAs and require an annual external audit.

Argus' description of its policies and procedures together with the full assurance review report are available at http://www.argusmedia.com/About-Argus/How-We-Work.

Argus methodologies are published at www.argusmedia.com/methodology.

The IOSCO PRA Principles are available at www.iosco.org/library/pubdocs/pdf/IOSCOPD391.pdf

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About Argus Media

Argus is an independent media organisation with over 600 full time staff. It is headquartered in London and has offices in each of the world's principal commodity centres. Its main activities comprise publishing market reports containing price assessments, market commentary and news, and business intelligence reports that analyse market and industry trends.

More than half of Argus employees are commodity journalists who specialise in reporting news and price information relating to physical energy and related commodity markets. They operate according to a rigorous Editorial Code of Conduct and a compliance and ethics policy that align with best journalistic practice, including the avoidance of conflicts of interest.

Argus is a leading provider of data on prices and fundamentals, news, analysis, consultancy services and conferences for the global crude, oil products, natural gas, electricity, coal, emissions, bioenergy, fertilizer, petrochemical, metals and transportation industries. Data provided by Argus are widely used for indexation of physical trade. Companies, governments and international agencies use Argus information for analysis and planning purposes.

Argus has 19 offices globally, including London, Houston, Washington, New York, Calgary, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Moscow, Astana and other key centres of the commodity industries. Argus was founded in 1970 and is a privately held UK-registered company.

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