South Korean energy company GS Caltex was among the companies behind the launch of a new oil exchange in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to help secure a more stable and transparent supply of Middle East crude.

Launched Monday, the new International Exchange Futures Abu Dhabi, or IFAD, has listed the Middle Eastern nation’s flagship Murban crude and started trading Murban crude futures.

GS Caltex joined global oil majors BP, Total, Inpex, Vitol, Shell, PetroChina to support its inception, along with energy-markets giant ICE and Abu Dhabi National Oil.

“To compare, this is like a public offering in the stock market. Now that Murban crude is officially listed, futures can be traded on a more transparent platform,” a GS Caltex official said.

Murban crude is most widely used crude in Asia. Last year, Murban crude accounted for 13 percent of GS Caltex’s total crude imports, or 34 million barrels, the largest of any type of crude brought by the company.

“Thanks to the launch of IFAD, buyers now have a fair, transparent platform to purchase Murban crude. In the future, Murban crude will become a global standard benchmark,” GS Caltex President Hur Sae-hong said in an interview with IFAD.

IFAD’s launch event, held Monday at Abu Dhabi Global Market, was attended by Sheikh Mansoor Bin Zayed Al Nahyan -- UAE deputy prime minister and minister of presidential affairs -- and officials from ICE, ADNOC and the partnering companies.

Murban is ADNOC’s flagship crude grade, with production capacity of over 2 million barrels per day at present. It currently accounts for around 50 percent of the UAE’s total production capacity, with plans to increase the production of Murban to more than 2.5 million barrels per day by 2030, in line with ADNOC’s goal of growing its production capacity to 5 million barrels of crude per day.

By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcorp.com)