Oil price maker Jorge Montepeque joins Italy's energy major Eni

[SINGAPORE] Jorge Montepeque, credited with inventing the modern system of setting world oil prices, is joining the trading arm of Italian energy major Eni as Senior Vice-President for Origination in London.

Eni Trading and Shipping deals in oil, refined products, natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG), power, and emissions certificates. It also handles the company's shipping.

A company spokesman confirmed the appointment. Mr Montepeque was not immediately available for comment. "He will support Eni by leveraging on his market knowledge and broad contacts, focusing on connecting with our customers around the world," a source familiar with the matter said.

Mr Montepeque left commodity price reporting agency Platts last year, where he had been head of market reporting since 2002.

Platts, part of McGraw Hill Financials Inc, and smaller rivals like privately held Argus Media and ICIS, a unit of Reed Elsevier, provides prices for opaque over-the-counter commodities markets.

Mr Montepeque has been widely credited for creating Platts' market-on-close (MOC) pricing mechanism, better known simply as"the window", on which billions of dollars of oil sales, futures and other derivatives are priced every day, and which has become the dominant oil price mechanism.

After leaving Platts, Mr Montepeque became critical of the MoC, arguing that the system was outdated and required renewal.

REUTERS