IntercontinentalExchange has set a date of Friday, April 21, to list the newest electronically traded contracts at its regulated futures business unit, ICE Futures.
The new cash-settled markets include ICE New York Harbor Unleaded Gasoline Blendstock (RBOB) Futures and ICE New York Harbor Heating Oil Futures, as well as three spreads or “cracks” on new and existing contracts.
The ICE Heating Oil Futures will be the North American equivalent of ICE Futures’ actively traded IPE Gas Oil futures contract. Priced in U.S. dollars and cents per gallon, the contract will trade for 18 consecutive months at a time. Each contract is sized at 42,000 gallons, the equivalent of 1,000 barrels.
The ICE Unleaded Gasoline Blendstock (RBOB) Futures Contract will also be sized at 42,000 gallons and priced in U.S. dollars and cents per gallon and will trade for 12 consecutive months. The contract is based on Reformulated Gasoline Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending for delivery in New York Harbor.
ICE Futures will also introduce “crack” markets based on the spread between the price of ICE’s West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude futures contract and the new futures contracts. The crack is the spread, or price differential, between the refined product and the price of crude oil. The ICE Heating Oil Crack and the ICE RBOB Unleaded Gasoline Crack will each be available with a single click on the ICE trading platform.
In addition, ICE Futures will list a Gas Oil Crack representing the spread between its benchmark IPE Brent Crude Futures contract and its IPE Gas Oil Futures contract. Its Gas Oil futures contract is now the world’s most actively traded heating oil futures contract, with average daily volume of 62,095 contracts in March. Margin offsets for the new contracts will be available against ICE Futures’ WTI, Brent and Gas Oil futures contracts.
Each of the contracts will trade for 21 hours a day, from 8:00 p.m. through 5:00 p.m. Eastern time the next day, and from 1:00 a.m. through 10:00 p.m. local London time.