London/Singapore: The person who helped establish some of the world’s most important commodity benchmarks will leave price- reporting agency Platts by the end of the year.

Jorge Montepeque, global director of market reporting at the unit of McGraw Hill Financial Inc., decided to leave after more than 20 years at the company, Platts said by email on Wednesday. The company publishes hundreds of prices for oil, fuels and other commodities, some of which are used as benchmarks.

“It is beyond dispute that he has created many of the world’s most important commodity benchmarks, on which the industry relies so much,” William Bathurst, Singapore-based credit manager at Peninsula Petroleum Ltd. who previously worked at Platts for five years, said by email.

Platts is making an organizational change in its markets- reporting group, which supports and develops methodology for price assessments, the company said. Price reporting will be overseen by existing commodity-sector heads and Martin Fraenkel, who will become chief content officer of Platts on June 1.

Montepeque started changing the way Platts priced oil in Singapore in 1992. He decided the company would only accept firm bids, offers and trades from named traders reported during a daily 30-minute window. Instead of an average, the company would calculate a price that reflected the value at the end of the half-hour. This assessment process is now used throughout the world in contracts for crude, refined oil products and power- plant fuel.

Key agency

“Platts has become the key price reporting agency” because of Montepeque’s efforts, Ehsan ul-Haq, senior analyst at London-based KBC Energy Economics, said by phone. “He has been a very important person for the oil industry,” introducing changes that solved some problems in pricing North Sea oil, which includes international benchmark Brent crude, ul-Haq said.

Montepeque was placed on immediate leave and is not expected to make any key pricing decisions, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified.

“Jorge remains an employee through year-end to help us through the transitional period,” Platts said in an emailed response to questions.

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