Launch Of TOCOM’s New “Chukyo Oil Market” Is Now Officially Set For October 12, 2010

Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“TOCOM”) today announced that the Exchange has received an approval from the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry for the launch of its new market named “Chukyo Oil Market”, so that it therefore officially set October 12, 2010 as the commencement of trading on the market.

By launching the Chukyo Oil Market, TOCOM intends primarily to offer a forum where trading participants of the oil market operated by Central Japan Commodity Exchange (C-COM), which has already announced to close at the end of January 2011, can continue to trade. At the new market, gasoline and kerosene will be the listed commodities and their contract specifications will be identical to the current C-COM product, except for the trading method and trading hours in order to facilitate transition of the C-COM trading participants to TOCOM’s new oil market. (At the launch of the market, the listed contract months will consist of the February 2011, March 2011 and April 2011 contracts.)   

TOCOM will adopt its trading method (individual auction by electronic trading --multiple executions, continuous trading) and extended trading hours (9:00-15:30, 17:00-4:00) to the Chukyo Oil Market so as to improve convenience of the market including trading opportunities. It is expected that the Chukyo Oil Market will also attract new market players, which shall lead to the revitalization of the commodity market as well as to the enhancement of TOCOM’s corporate value.

As of today, 37 trading participants have acquired membership of this new market.

[Reference] Contract specifications of the Oil Markets at TOCOM and C-COM