S&P Global Platts


S&P Global Platts is a provider of energy and commodities information and a source of benchmark price assessments in the physical commodity markets. The business was started with the foundation in 1909 of the magazine National Petroleum News by Warren C. Platt.
S&P Global Platts and Argus Media are recognized as the two most significant price reporting agencies for the oil market.

Overview

From an original focus on the oil industry, S&P Global Platts gradually expanded its purview to include metals, agriculture, shipping, and all energy-related markets – oil, coal, natural gas, electricity, nuclear power, petrochemicals, renewables, and emissions. S&P Global Platts is a division of S&P Global, Inc.,, a provider of ratings, benchmarks and analytics to the global capital and commodity markets. The firm is sister to brands like S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Market Intelligence and S&P Dow Jones Indices. It had been part of the Commodities & Commercial group of S&P Global, but that group saw all its assets, besides Platts, slowly sold off. It is now considered a stand-alone division of S&P Global.

History

Warren C. Platt started the magazine National Petroleum News in Cleveland, Ohio in 1909. He expanded the business with the publication of the newsletter called Platts Oilgram in 1923, which went on to be recognized as an influential source for petroleum prices. The companies founded by Platt that published prices and news were acquired in 1953 to become part of what was then known as McGraw-Hill group, which was later to become S&P Global. The publication activities that started with petroleum later expanded to cover energy and commodities, which were all undertaken by the division that became known as Platts.
In 2000 McGraw-Hill merged Platts with other like assets to turn the company into a provider of energy information.
Beginning in 2010, Platts' parent has made numerous acquisitions to significantly grow the Platts business. The acquired companies were Bentek, Eclipse Energy, Kingsman, Minerals Value Service, RigData and PIRA. An attempt to acquire OPIS in 2011 failed following market objections and Federal Trade Commission resistance.
Platts' first significant acquisition came in 2001, when it acquired FT Energy. That acquisition gave it the Platts Global Energy Awards, considered one of the industry's biggest awards event, held every December in New York.
Other acquisitions made by S&P Global Platts:
2010: Bentek Energy, a natural gas-focused analytics firm
2016: RigData for an undisclosed amount, Platts' first significant expansion into the upstream sector of the energy industry.
2016: Commodity Flow for an undisclosed amount.