The oil information cartel is (finally) broken

But it wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't cheap.

It took Stafford and his team almost 18 months of making phone calls, getting rejected, making more phone calls – over and over again.

When he found the right people they were often reluctant to release the information for fear of ruffling the feathers of senior management.

Stafford ultimately succeeded simply by knocking on enough doors across the globe to find enough oil industry people who were sick and tired of this oil price information being held hostage. Like Stafford these were people who felt that there should be transparency with respect to this information.

Stafford will be out of pocket by a couple of hundred thousand dollars per year in order to secure the continued contractual commitments to supply this data.

Stafford and his team aren't done. They are still making calls, sending e-mails and adding different blends to their pricing list. There are a few blends that he knows they are still missing but are incredible hard to get ahold of. Certain OPEC blends in particular have been hard to pin down.

Well done Mr. Stafford.