Brent Crude futures traded 1,972,165 contracts, a 13.8% increase over the previous July best set in 2002.
Natural Gas futures also surpassed the previous July record by 18.5%, also set in 2002 with 57,765 monthly and 150 quarterly contracts traded for a total of 57,915 contracts.
Total market volume set a July record. A total of 2,661,367 contracts changed hands, an increase of 5.1% over the previous July record, also set last year.
By the end of July 2003, over 14.25 million Brent Crude contracts had traded (7.25 million short of the Brent Crude total for 2002), and over 4.75 million Gas Oil contracts had traded (3.4 million short of the Gas Oil total for 2002).
By July's end, total market volume stood at 19.6 million lots, 2.2 million lots, or 12.5% ahead of the comparable period in 2002.
