The Leadership for Energy Automation Practices
("LEAP") published its new master agreement, the LEAP
Master Agreement for the Purchase and Sale of Physical Commodities
Version 3.0 (the "LEAP 3.0") on June 10. This agreement
is the result of the combined efforts of at least 10 major energy
trading firms and more than two years of work to update and improve
upon the LEAP Master Agreement for the Purchase and Sale of
Physical Commodities Version 2.1 (the "LEAP Version
2.1"), which was published in April 2009.
Historically, there has been very little standardization of
contract terms in the North American crude oil and products trading
markets, with the exception of the widespread use of Conoco's
1993 General Provisions Domestic Crude Oil Agreements (the
"Conoco '93 GTCs"). LEAP published its version 2.0
industry master agreement for crude oil and other petroleum
products in November 2007, which was followed by an updated edition
in 2009 (the LEAP Version 2.1). LEAP's
