Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) announced today that the overall futures and options markets saw record activity in Q3 2024 with 517 million contracts traded during the quarter, including a record 276 million energy futures and options .
“The development of ICE’s commodity and energy markets began more than 20 years ago, enabling us to offer clients a truly global and interconnected platform of markets and data across all asset classes, all designed with liquidity, accuracy and flexibility to risk management and identification,” he said. Trabue Bland, SVP of Futures Markets at ICE.
Record trading in Q3 2024 includes a record 173.3 million oil futures and options, the highest trading volume since Q1 2020. ICE Brent traded in record volumes during the quarter with a record 93, 4 million futures and options contracts, setting a record average daily volume (ADV) of 1.5 million during the third quarter of 2024. Additionally, Brent options hit a record open interest of 3.77 million on October 11, 2024. The open interest in Brent futures and options rose 20% year-on-year (y/y) to 6 million contracts .
Meanwhile, ICE Gasoil, which is at the heart of middle distillates trading as the global benchmark for refined petroleum products, set a record for options trading in Q3 2024 with around 344,000 contracts traded. As of October 3, 2024, oil futures and options saw open interest of a record 1.3 million contracts, up more than 60% annually.
ICE hosts over 800 oil futures and options backed by the global Brent and Gasoil benchmarks. Other ICE oil benchmarks that hit record highs during the third quarter include ICE WTI futures and options with 23.7 million contracts traded, ICE Midland WTI futures ( HOU ) with a record 1.6 million traded and ICE Murban futures with a record 1.9 million contracts traded.
ICE’s energy markets include the widest range of natural gas benchmarks to support fuel globalization. These include the global TTF benchmark, the US Henry Hub benchmark, the Canadian AECO benchmark, the UK NBP benchmark and the Northeast Asia benchmark ICE JKM LNG (Platts). Open interest across the pool is up 24% YoY, with TTF futures and options hitting an ADV record of over 400,000 contracts in September 2024, up 30% YoY.
Alongside ICE’s energy markets are the most liquid markets for trading environmental products, including EU Carbon Allowance (EUA) futures and options, the world’s most liquid carbon market, with volumes of over 40% per annum . Meanwhile, in the third quarter of 2024, ICE’s environmental group in North America saw a record 1.47 million contracts traded. Trading activity in global environmental markets is up 42% year-on-year and open interest is up 35% year-on-year.