Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) today announced that its total futures and options markets reached record trading activity during 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 over 20 years ago, allowing us to offer customers a truly global and interconnected platform of markets and data across asset classes, all designed with liquidity, precision and flexibility for managing and identifying risk,” said Trabue Bland, SVP of Futures Markets at ICE.
Record trading during Q3 2024 includes a record 173.3 million oil futures and options, the highest volume traded since Q1 2020. ICE Brent traded at record quantities during the quarter with a record 93.4 million futures and options traded, hitting record average daily volume (ADV) of 1.5 million during Q3 2024. In addition, Brent options hit record open interest of 3.77 million on October 11, 2024. Open interest across Brent futures and options is up 20% year-over-year (y/y) at 6 million contracts.
Meanwhile, ICE Gasoil, which sits at the center of middle distillates trading as the global benchmark for refined oil products, saw record trading in options during Q3 2024 with approximately 344,000 contracts traded. Gasoil futures and options hit record open interest of 1.3 million contracts on October 3, 2024, up over 60% y/y.
ICE is home to over 800 oil futures and options contracts underpinned by the global benchmarks Brent and Gasoil. Other ICE oil benchmarks which hit record highs during the third quarter include ICE WTI futures and options with 23.7 million contracts traded, ICE Midland WTI (HOU) futures which traded a record 1.6 million and ICE Murban futures which traded a record 1.9 million contracts.
ICE’s energy markets include the broadest range of natural gas benchmarks to support globalization of the fuel. These include the global benchmark TTF, U.S. benchmark Henry Hub, Canadian benchmark AECO, U.K. benchmark NBP, and the benchmark for North-East Asia, ICE JKM LNG (Platts). Open interest across the complex is up 24% y/y, with TTF futures and options hitting record ADV of over 400,000 contracts during September 2024, up 30% y/y.
Sitting alongside ICE’s energy markets are the most liquid markets to trade environmental products, including EU Carbon Allowance (EUA) futures and options, the world’s most liquid carbon market, with volumes up over 40% y/y. Meanwhile, in Q3 2024, ICE’s North American environmental complex saw record trading of 1.47 million contracts. Trading activity across global environmental markets is up 42% year-to-date and open interest is up 35% y/y.
