Home | Resources | Glossary

A | B | C | D | E-F | G-J | L | M-O | P | R | S | T-Z


Paper Barrels
A term used to denote trade in non-physical oil (futures, forwards, swaps) markets which give a buyer or seller the right to a certain quantity and quality of crude oil or refined products at a future date, but not to any specific physical lot.

Petrochemical
An intermediate chemical derived from petroleum hydrocarbon liquids, or natural gas, such as ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, and xylene.

Petroleum
A generic name for hydrocarbons, including crude oil, natural gas liquids, refined, and product derivatives.

Pipeline
A pipe through which oil or natural gas is pumped between two points, either offshore or onshore.

Point Or Tick
The smallest monetary unit of change in a futures price or an options premium.

Position
The net total of a trader's open contracts, either long or short, in a particular underlying commodity.

Position Limit
For a single trader or firm, the maximum number of permitted outstanding obligations in a particular commodity.

Posted Price
The price some refiners will pay for crude of a certain API gravity from a particular field or area.

Premium
1) The price or cost of an options contract determined competitively by buyers and sellers.
2) An upward adjustment in price allowed for delivery of a commodity of higher grade against a futures contract.

Price Discovery
The manner of making prices visible and readily available to the public.

Price Gaps
A chart pattern of the price movement of a commodity when the low price of one bar on a chart is higher than the high of the preceding bar (or inversely, the high is lower than the low of the preceding bar); depicting a price or price range where no trades take place. The price patterns are used by technical analysts to try to recognize changes in a price trend.

Primary Stocks
Stocks of crude oil or refined products held in storage at leases, refineries, natural gas processing plants, pipelines, tank farms, and bulk terminals that can store at least 50,000 barrels of refined products.

Prompt Barrel
Product which will move or become available within three to four days.

Put Option
An option which gives the buyer, or holder, the right, but not the obligation, to sell a futures contract at a specific price within a specific period of time in exchange for a one-time premium payment. It obligates the seller, or writer, of the option to buy the underlying futures contract at the designated price, should an option be exercised at that price. See call option.