Argus (formerly known as Petroleum Argus Ltd) is a privately held provider of energy and commodities information, headquartered in London. The company publishes daily price assessments in physical commodity markets.
Overview Argus is a privately held UK-registered company which publishes news, price assessments, data, analytics and consulting services of international energy and other commodity markets. It also offers conferences.
Argus was the first price-reporting agency to apply the IOSCO Principles for Oil Price Reporting Agencies in 2013, and subsequently roll them out to cover the other energy and commodity markets it covers. Argus retains the services of a leading accounting firm to undertake an annual independent assurance review to verify adherence to the Principles.
Argus was owned by the family of its founder Jan Nasmyth and its senior staff, but in September 2016 a majority-stake was sold to the equity firm General Atlantic valuing the company at $1.4 billion. The company’s ownership structure was updated in 2024 when Chairman and Chief Executive, Adrian Binks became majority owner and General Atlantic consolidated its stake
Argus's headquarters are in London, with major offices in Houston, Dubai, Singapore, Paris, Seoul, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Riga, Kyiv, Astana, Calgary, San Francisco, Mexico City, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, New York, São Paulo, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Mumbai, Sydney, Granada, Brussels, Lagos, and Cape Town.
Prices assessed by Argus for energy, fertilizer, metals, chemicals and agriculture markets are widely used as benchmarks to settle futures contracts and as indexes for short or long term physical supply contracts.
History Argus was established in 1970 by former Daily Telegraph journalist Jan Nasmyth. In 1985, the company opened offices in Singapore and Houston. It began covering European gas and power markets in 1995, and added coal and biofuels in the early 2000s.
The company has acquired numerous companies across commodity markets over its history:
Year Company Market 2011 FMB Consultants Fertilizers 2012 DeWitt & Co US petrochemicals 2012 Fundalytics European power and gas 2013 TABrewer Consulting Petrochemicals 2013 Jim Jordan & Associates Petrochemicals 2015 MetalPrices.com Speciality metals and rare earths 2018 Integer Research Market intelligence and conferences 2019 O.M.R. German oil reporting 2020 Agritel French agricultural intelligence 2021 Oleochem Analytics Renewable chemicals 2022 Pipe Logix US pipe and tube market 2023 Mercaris US organic and non-GMO commodities
Awards Argus won the Queen's Award for Enterprise: International Trade (Export) in the UK in 2002, 2009 and 2015.
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