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The extension will provide for trading in 71 contract months, beginning with April 2006 and ending in December 2012, for both the ICE West Texas Intermediate Light Sweet Crude Oil futures contract and the IPE Brent Crude Oil futures contract. ICE Futures will add contracts for all months in 2009 through 2011, as well as long-dated June and December contracts for 2012. An additional 12 months of crude futures contracts will be available annually following the termination of the nearby December contract.
ICE Futures launched the new ICE WTI Crude futures contract on February 3, with first-day volume representing the strongest start for any new contract in the exchange’s history. In its first 10 days of trading, the contract averaged more than 40,000 contracts per day.
ICE Futures also announced that it will convert the transaction fees charged on its Brent Crude and Gas Oil futures and options contracts to U.S. dollar-based transaction fees from British pound-denominated fees. As a result, the rates will convert from 35 pence per side to $0.70 per side for screen-based transactions beginning on April 1, 2006. The change in base currency will align the futures transaction fee currency with the underlying denomination of the contracts.
Each of these contracts trades electronically 21 hours a day, five days a week in the 37 jurisdictions globally where ICE Futures screens have been approved, including the U.S., the U.K., and throughout continental Europe and Asia. The contracts trade continuously from 1:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. local London time, or from 8:00 p.m. through 5:00 p.m. Eastern time.
