Tokyo Commodity Exchange To Launch A New Oil Market In October 2010

Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“TOCOM”) today announced that the Exchange has decided at the Board of Directors meeting to launch a new Oil Market, to be called “Chukyo Oil Market”, on October 12, 2010 taking over the market currently operated by Central Japan Commodity Exchange (“C-COM”) in response to C-COM’s request.

At the new market, named after the region where C-COM is located, 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. (At the launch of the market, the listed contract months will consist of the February 2011, March 2011 and April 2011 contracts.)   

Despite the decrease of trading volume in recent years, C-COM’s oil market has played an important role as a public utility in this region with a good track record of physical delivery of the products. TOCOM intends to not only offer a forum where trading participants of the C-COM oil market can continue to trade, but also improve trading opportunities through the introduction of a new trading method and extended trading hours. 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.

TOCOM plans to apply for government approval shortly and to continue its preparations to commence trading of the new oil market on October 21, 2010, upon receipt of said approval.

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