Intercontinental Exchange, a leading global provider of technology and data, announced that its global futures and options markets reached record open interest (OI) of over 94 million contracts on April 24, 2024, up 26% year-over-year (y/y), including record OI in commodities of 66.3 million and record energy OI of 62 million, with energy up 30% (y/y).

“ICE has been focused on building a global commodities and energy trading platform for over two decades, designed to serve the needs of an evolving commercial customer base,” said Trabue Bland, SVP, Futures Exchanges at ICE. “The record depths of liquidity truly highlight the benefit our clients are finding in the contracts we provide, that allow for both flexibility and precision hedging across our benchmark derivatives products.”

OI across ICE’s global oil markets is up 30% y/y, with average daily volume up 26% year-to-date. Brent options, the most liquid crude oil options market in the world, has hit a series of OI records in April 2024 beating the record last set in March 2020, including a record 3.5 million contracts on April 24, 2024, up 51% y/y. ICE’s Low Sulphur Gasoil contract is the global benchmark for refined products and on April 25, 2024, Gasoil options hit record OI of 191,400 contracts.

Meanwhile, ICE’s global natural gas futures and options markets hit record OI of 41.3 million on April 24, 2024, up 34% y/y, with ICE’s Henry Hub futures markets reaching record OI of 7.8 million contracts and TTF natural gas futures and options hitting record OI of 4.5 million, up almost 100% y/y.

Across ICE’s global environmental complex, open interest is up 43% since the start of the year. The price signals and liquidity provided by ICE’s energy and environmental markets are at the heart of helping companies transition to alternative forms of energy by providing tools to allocate capital and manage the associated price risk.

Source: ICE