Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data and home to the most liquid energy markets in the world, today announced that January 2026 saw record trading activity in ICE’s Midland WTI (HOU) and Canadian crude oil markets as customers manage the impact on oil flows from the return of Venezuela as an oil exporter.
“The return of Venezuelan crude has created potential new competition for Canadian oil on the U.S. Gulf Coast and in other export markets, including China. In China, it’s more than Venezuelan crude competing with Canadian; growing flows of inexpensive Russian crude are also competing with Canadian barrels, as Chinese demand is replacing Indian demand, which has dropped due to sanctions on Russia,” said Jeff Barbuto, SVP, Global Oil Markets at ICE.
“Adding to this, severe U.S. winter weather has further impacted production and refining dynamics at a time when Iran geopolitical tensions have influenced risk premiums in the oil market. These are complex global dynamics which have seen Canadian crude facing increased competition from multiple sources and driven record oil trading through January in ICE's Midland WTI (HOU) and Western Canadian futures markets,” continued Barbuto.
Volume records in January 2026 include:
- ICE Midland WTI (HOU), the benchmark for pricing U.S. crude production and exports, traded a record 1.9 million contracts during the month, with record Average Daily Volume (ADV) of 96,388 contracts. HOU hit consecutive single-day volume records with 257,569 contracts traded on January 30, 2026.
- ICE Western Canadian Select (WCS) 1a Index futures (TMW), the benchmark for Canadian heavy crude, traded a record 130,000 contracts during the month with record ADV of 6,200 contracts. The contract reached a new single-day volume record of 19,965 lots on January 6, 2026.
- ICE WCS Houston futures (ARV) - which prices against physical WCS trades reported in Houston - traded a record 188,000 contracts with record ADV of 8,970.
TMW is the benchmark price for Western Canadian Select crude priced at the oil sands in Canada, while ARV is the benchmark price of WCS traded in Houston.
Customers can benefit from margin offsets as high as 98% when trading and clearing at ICE, with offsets available across over 800 oil contracts including ICE Brent, Gasoil, WTI (Cushing), Dubai (Platts) and Murban, as well as NY Harbor RBOB Gasoline and Heating Oil. Oil is now cleared by ICE’s new Value-At-Risk margin model, IRM 2, which offers a more precise margin model when clearing a well hedged portfolio.
ICE is home to the most liquid energy markets in the world to manage risk exposure. A record 1.2 billion energy derivatives contracts traded on ICE in 2025, including a record 736 million oil futures and options.
