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CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced a record year for its international coal futures of 1,298,361 contracts (1.3 billion metric tonnes) traded in 2013. This is a 300 percent increase compared to the volume traded in 2012 which was 329,985 contracts (330 million metric tonnes).
Our volumes have continued to grow in line with demand for coal as the fuel of choice in global energy markets. This international coal volume comes from non-US CME Group coal products as follows: Coal (API2) CIF ARA (ARGUS-McCloskey) Futures, Coal (API4) FOB Richards Bay (ARGUS-McCloskey) Futures, Coal (API 5) fob Newcastle (Argus/McCloskey), Indonesian Coal (McCloskey sub-bituminous), and Coal (API 8) cfr South China (Argus/McCloskey) Futures.
The highest number of coal contracts traded on a single day in 2013 was 13,935 contracts on 3 September. The monthly record was in October with 171,988 contracts traded. Annual Open Interest for international coal at the end of December 2013 was 118,448 contracts compared to 47,215 contracts at the end of December 2012.
In June CME Group launched the Coal (API 5) fob Newcastle (Argus/McCloskey) deliverable in Western Australia to add to the Asian Indonesian Coal (McCloskey sub-bituminous), and Coal (API 8) cfr South China (Argus/McCloskey) Futures contracts. A total of 17,595 contracts were traded in 2013 across these three Asian contracts as new players entered the market.
The total volume for US coal futures for 2013 was 269,688 compared to 229,919 contracts in 2012.
For further information please see the coal monthly report. These products are listed by and subject to the rules of NYMEX.
