NEW YORK & LONDON & AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listings services, continues to attract record levels of open interest across its energy markets. ICE reached record open interest in Total Energy futures of 32.5 million contracts on June 25, 2020, contributing to a year-over-year increase of 19% in Total Energy open interest. Open interest in natural gas, one of the key drivers of these records, stood at a record 16.4 million contracts, including open interest in ICE’s U.S. Basis contracts of more than 10.1 million contracts as of June 30, 2020.
“Every day, we work to support our customers as they navigate the impact of the market turmoil and respond to the changing supply and demand indicators across energy asset classes,” said Ben Jackson, President of Intercontinental Exchange. “The momentum behind ICE’s global energy complex is due, in part, to participants turning to our benchmarks to manage their exposure to the evolving price risks they face in different parts of the world.”
Open interest is the number of contracts that remain open each day and reflects how customers are adding to their positions for a period of time. Open interest in longer-dated positions tends to be held by commercial customers hedging their exposure to price risk.
Open interest in ICE TTF futures and options stood at a record 3.1 million contracts as of June 25, 2020, up more than 70% year-over-year. The globalization of natural gas is propelling the growth of ICE TTF and JKM LNG (Platts) futures into recognized benchmarks that are relied on by commercial participants in a range of geographies. JKM hit open interest records in June of more than 104,000 contracts.
The momentum behind the ICE TTF contract is driven by Europe’s unique role as the global balancing market for LNG which is cementing the contract’s utility as an important tool for customers to hedge their natural gas price risk. This trend is leading TTF to become increasingly internationalized, while the record growth in the use of JKM futures reflects its growing prominence as Asia’s natural gas benchmark.
