Best February On Record For IPE

The IPE, Europe's leading energy futures and options exchange, recorded the best February in the Exchange's 21-year history, beating the previous February record reached in 2000. Records were set for total market together with IPE Brent Crude futures, IPE Gas Oil futures and IPE Natural Gas futures.

Monthly total market volume for February 2002 rose by 16% compared to February 2000. Volumes increased from 1,967,359 lots to 2,276,131 lots.

IPE Brent Crude futures, for February 2002, traded 1,639,041 lots, equivalent to 1.6 billion barrels of crude oil. This compared to 1,366,081 lots traded in February 2000 and represents a rise of 20%. For IPE Gas Oil futures and Natural Gas futures the previous records were set in 2001. IPE Gas Oil traded 577,951 lots in February 2002 beating the previous record of 529,588 lots traded in February 2001 - a rise of 9%. IPE Natural Gas futures rose 7% when they traded 43,560 lots in February 2002 compared to the 40,645 lots traded in February 2001.

Stephen Gutteridge, Business Development Director, said, "with the challenges we face this year, it is good to see that the IPE continues to have a healthy and growing business. This further demonstrates that our Members and customers appreciate utilising a well regulated market place to manage their price risk exposure in ever volatile market conditions".