SOURCE / ECONOMY
Oil futures trading value on Shanghai up 51.2% in Jan-Oct
Published: Nov 17, 2021 05:38 PM
A crude oil tanker docks at Zhoushan Shihua Crude Oil Wharf in East China's Zhejiang Province on Thursday. The tanker is set to unload 276,000 tons of crude oil at the wharf. The amount of crude oil unloaded at this wharf in September increased 54 percent compared with August, reaching a new high for this year. Photo: IC

A crude oil tanker docks at Zhoushan Shihua Crude Oil Wharf in East China's Zhejiang Province on Thursday. The tanker is set to unload 276,000 tons of crude oil at the wharf. The amount of crude oil unloaded at this wharf in September increased 54 percent compared with August, reaching a new high for this year. Photo: IC

Oil futures trading value on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange Co (INE) saw robust growth so in the first 10 months of the year, according to data on Wednesday, underscoring the rapid rise of China's crude oil futures market supported by the country's massive consumption and imports.

During the first 10 months of 2021, the aggregate trading value of crude oil futures in China reached 14.24 trillion yuan ($2.2 trillion), up 51.2 percent year-over-year, data from the INE showed. 

The number of futures contracts totaled 33.81 million by the end of October, up 3.8 percent year-on-year, with daily trading positions reaching around 80,000.

Crude oil futures closed at 510.4 yuan a barrel on Wednesday. 

As of Monday, 75 overseas intermediaries had registered on the INE, with overseas clients coming from more than 20 countries and regions across six continents.

The increase in crude oil futures is conducive to promoting open, fair and just oil prices and will increase pricing power, Qu Xinrong, a senior research fellow at the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"The increasing trading volume and turnover represents the market's recognition that crude oil futures on the Shanghai market have been broadly recognized, and more participants use those futures to hedge, which will improve the structure of the crude futures market," said Qu.

The increased trading volume has also been boosted by massive oil consumption in China, analysts said.

In 2020, China's demand for crude oil continued to grow despite impact form the COVID-19 pandemic. China's consumption of crude oil in 2020 stood at 736 million tons, while imports stood at 541 million tons, according to official data.

In 2020, a total of 41.59 million contracts of crude oil futures were traded on the INE, with total turnover of 11.96 trillion yuan. 

Global Times