IPE Set Fifth Consecutive Annual Record With Over 30 Million Lots In 2002

today announced that 2002 traded volume soared past 30 million lots.

2002 saw 30,406,025 lots traded, representing a rise of over 15% on the 26,422,964 lots traded in 2001. The underlying value of these trades equates to over US$705 billion. 2002 is the fifth consecutive year that the IPE has produced record trading volumes and in that time traded volume on the Exchange has doubled.

Each individual futures contract contributed to the overall rise in total market volume.

• IPE Brent Crude futures were 16.6% higher rising from 18.3 million lots to 21.5 million lots in 2002.
• IPE Gas Oil futures were 12.8% higher than 2001, rising from 7.2 million lots to 8.15 million lots in 2002.
• IPE Natural Gas futures rose by 20.6%, increasing from 484,000 lots to 583,800 lots in 2002. In addition IPE Natural Gas futures broke the monthly trading record during December with a total of 77,070 lots traded. This is the second monthly record set by IPE Natural Gas futures since their migration to the ICE platform on October 4th 2002.

Richard Ward, Chief Executive of IPE, said "This has been a phenomenal year in terms of volumes traded on the IPE as evidenced by the stream of daily and monthly records across all contracts in 2002. It was a turbulent year for energy markets globally and many companies have transferred their business activity to regulated exchanges like the IPE where counterparty risk is eliminated through our links with the London Clearing House." He added "In 2003 we look forward to meeting the challenge of transitioning our oil contracts to the ICE platform".