For the first time in its history, January 2003 saw the IPE trade over 3 million contracts for the month, representing an underlying value of over US$ 95 Billion. The monthly total of 3,274,809 contracts eclipsed the previous record of 2.89 million contracts set in October 2002, with IPE Brent Crude futures, IPE Gas Oil futures and IPE Natural Gas futures all achieving new monthly volume records.
IPE Brent Crude futures traded 2.27 million contracts, exceeding by 10% the previous record of 2.07 million contracts traded in April 2002, with open interest at the highest levels for three years.
IPE Gas Oil futures started the year by posting a new daily record of 70,373 contracts on 8 January. It finished January by posting a new monthly volume record of 884,361 contracts, beating the previous record of 865,411 contracts set in October 2002.
Jackie Bullimore, Head of Oil Markets at the IPE, said "The consistent growth of the IPE Brent and Gas Oil contracts continues to prove their central role in mitigating risk and creating opportunity to an ever widening audience of participants in the energy markets, particularly in times of high market volatility and global uncertainty."
IPE Natural Gas futures continued the growth theme. The January monthly total of 95,945 contacts was a 24% increase on the previous monthly volume record of 77,070 contracts traded in December 2002. This represents the third consecutive record setting month.
Jason Pegley, Utility Markets Manager, said "From modest beginnings, IPE Natural Gas futures have grown to become an integral part of the UK Natural Gas market providing a central benchmark and hedging tool for the industry. As markets around Europe continue to deregulate, we are ideally positioned to be the Exchange of choice for European gas and power companies."
Richard Ward, Chief Executive of the IPE, added, "The continued strong performance that the IPE has shown in January further demonstrates the central role that the Exchange plays in the energy markets domestically and globally. Participants see the value that the IPE, as a Recognised Investment Exchange, brings in times of high uncertainty. IPE Brent Crude and Gas Oil futures continue to cement themselves as global and regional benchmarks, and it is hugely encouraging to see that IPE Natural Gas futures have posted three consecutive record months since the contract was transferred to the new IPE ETS trading platform."
In addition, the IPE has finalised plans for the transition of the Extended Hours session to IPE ETS. Following its meeting on 31 January, the IPE Board announced its intention to transition Extended Hours for the IPE Brent Crude and IPE Gas Oil futures contracts onto the IPE ETS platform beginning on Thursday 27 February 2003.
Operating hours for this extended session will be as for those currently traded on ETS II, namely:
- IPE Brent Crude futures 08.00 - 09.45
- IPE Gas Oil futures 08.00 - 09.00
