China’s plans to create a new crude futures contract to compete with global pricing benchmarks have been shelved due to market resistance, five sources with knowledge of the matter said, dealing a blow to Shanghai’s ambitions to be a leading energy trading hub. Potential international participants were worried they would not be able to freely exchange the yuan currency given a Chinese clampdown on capital outflows, and concerned at Beijing’s heavy handed intervention in its volatile commodity markets last year, the sources said. Most of the trillions of dollars of oil traded each year is priced off two crude derivatives, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and London’s Brent, and executed mainly on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) owned by CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange. With Asia becoming the world’s biggest […]