Crude oil futures contracts set a daily volume record of 373,048 contracts on April 14, exceeding the previous record of 355,769 contracts set on March 3.
Crude oil futures also reached record trading volumes on NYMEX ACCESS®, the Exchange's after hours trading platform, when 46,364 contracts were traded during the April 13 trading session, surpassing the previous record of 46,093 contracts traded on October 19, 2004.
Crude oil futures set a record for open interest last week with 868,924 contracts for the April 6 trading session, surpassing the previous open interest record of 852,610 contracts set on March 16.
Exchange-wide futures and options reached a monthly volume was a record of 17,421,359 contracts, which surpassed the previous record of 15,118,544 contracts set in December 2004. This record included 14,299,970 Exchange-wide futures contracts and 3,121,389 Exchange-wide options contracts, which surpassed the November 2004 record of 12,235,492 contracts and October 2004 record of 3,072,371 contracts, respectively.
The NYMEX Division set a monthly volume record when 14,803,430 contracts were traded, exceeding the previous record of 12,622,430 contracts traded in September 2004. Included in this total was a record 12,029,179 NYMEX Division futures contracts, which broke the previous record of 10,204,948 contracts set in September 2004 and a record 2,774,258 NYMEX Division options contracts traded, which surpassed the previous record of 2,570,186 contracts traded in April 2002.
Crude oil futures set a monthly volume record of 5,720,759 contracts, breaking the previous record of 4,987,379 contracts set in August 2004.
Total e-miNYsm futures contracts also set a monthly volume record of 251,430 contracts, surpassing the previous record of 163,519 contracts set in October 2004. e-miNYsm crude oil futures contracts set a monthly volume record with 228,343 contracts traded, topping the previous record of 150,200 contracts traded in October 2004. e-miNYsm natural gas contracts set a monthly volume record when 23,087 contracts were traded, surpassing the previous record of 21,746 contracts set in January 2005.
Exchange President James E. Newsome, said, "The recent daily and monthly volume records are strong indicators of the energy industry's confidence in the financial integrity and security provided by the Exchange. We are particularly proud of the success the NYMEX Division had in March as market participants increasingly depend on the transparency and flexibility in managing price risk provided by its futures and options contracts."
