Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) today announced record open interest (OI) across its global natural gas futures and options markets as well as record trading activity in global natural gas options.
On March 22, 2024, ICE’s global natural gas futures and options hit record OI of 40.2 million contracts, up 29% year-over-year (y/y). In North America, OI across ICE’s Henry Hub futures and options is up 33% y/y. These markets offer market participants the most liquid contracts to hedge long term exposure to U.S. natural gas prices.
Meanwhile, ICE’s U.S. financial gas markets hit record OI of over 11 million futures and options contracts on April 1, 2024. ICE’s U.S. financial gas markets cover 70 hubs across North America allowing customers to manage regional supply and demand dynamics.
TTF, the global benchmark for natural gas, hit record OI of 4.3 million across futures and options contracts on March 25, 2024, up 90% y/y. ICE’s TTF markets finished 2023 with record OI, record volume and record participation and in Q1 2024 continued to hit further volume and average daily volume (ADV) highs.
“For over 20 years, ICE has been building a global energy network which includes the broadest range of liquid benchmarks to support natural gas markets globally,” said Trabue Bland, SVP, Futures Markets at ICE. “Our network provides our customers with the liquidity, transparency and margin offsets they need to manage their price risk and respond to the changing supply and demand dynamics impacting natural gas through the year.”
In addition, ICE’s global natural gas options market hit record traded volume in Q1 2024 of almost 38 million contracts, beating the previous record set in Q1 2012. Traded volume in ICE’s North American natural gas options hit a record of 30.6 million contracts during the quarter, as Henry Hub options also hit record volume of 30.4 million contracts, surpassing the last record in Q1 2012. TTF options continue to perform strongly, hitting record volume and record ADV in Q1 2024 and on March 25, 2024, hit record OI of 2.3 million contracts, up 122% y/y.
ICE is home to the broadest range of natural gas benchmarks including the global benchmark TTF, U.S. benchmark Henry Hub, Canadian benchmark AECO, UK benchmark NBP, and ICE JKM LNG (Platts) the benchmark for natural gas for North-East Asia. ICE’s global natural gas portfolio is one part of its global energy markets which are the most liquid in the world to trade energy derivatives.
