Intercontinental Exchange, a global leader in technology and data, announced record trading activity in Murban crude oil as ICE Futures Abu Dhabi (IFAD) celebrates its third anniversary.
IFAD and ICE's Murban Futures Market launched in March 2021 with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and nine of the world's largest energy traders as founding partners.
In the first quarter of 2024, ICE's Murban futures market reached record trading volume of over 1.1 million contracts and reached a record average daily volume of 21,454 contracts in March, an increase of 152% compared to the same period last year. On April 15, 2024, Murban futures hit a daily volume record with 36,464 contracts traded. Murban futures have hit a number of open interest records through early 2024, with OI up 33% year-on-year.
“Three years after launch, together with ADNOC and our partners, we have built a truly global Murban futures market that sits alongside benchmark Brent and Midland WTI crude oil grades,” said Gary King, President of ICE Futures Abu Dhabi. “ADNOC’s vision of moving the official selling price for Murban to forward pricing based on ICE Murban futures has exposed Murban to a global audience and now has international reach and relevance in the global crude oil market, which is also reflected in the decision by Bloomberg to launch a Murban crude index that aims to track the performance of Murban futures.”
Since IFAD's launch, nearly 6 million Murban futures contracts have been traded, representing approximately 6 billion barrels of Murban crude oil, as 244 million barrels of Murban have been delivered through IFAD. To date, over 150 participants from the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East have traded at IFAD, including commercial and financial participants.
Murban is part of ICE's global oil complex, which includes over 800 futures and options contracts focused on Brent, which is used to price more than three-quarters of the world's crude oil traded. ICE's extensive global commodity markets, including benchmark oil and natural gas contracts, experienced record trading activity in the first quarter of 2024 with nearly 5 million contracts traded, surpassing the previous record set in the first quarter of 2020.
Source: ICE
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