ABSTRACT
In many senses, price reporting agencies (PRAs) have come a long way since the creation of the first modern PRAs over a century ago. In another sense, though, the industry has been remarkably stable. If we assume that screen activity will generate more and more benchmarks, then by 2050 it seems a fair assumption that most PRA staff will no longer be situated in the major capitals. The MABUX initiative still relies on infrequently assessed port prices to generate part of its live indexes so it has not yet achieved genuine live pricing but it represents a step in this direction. New pricing providers are challenging the ways that the traditional PRAs do business, either in terms of methodologies, accessibility or subscription price. PRAs are likely to continue to play the central role in commodity pricing that they have done in recent years but their business model will inevitably change with time.
