North by Northeast

7 August 2012 By Kevin Allison

Trading in the North Sea blend’s futures hit a record in June. London-traded Brent contracts outsold New York-traded WTI for the first quarter ever. The U.S. benchmark is a flawed gauge of global demand. But Brent, already a reference for most global oil trades, has problems too.

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An average of about 607,000 Brent crude futures changed hands each day on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange in the three-month period from April to June, according to Reuters data. Traders exchanged an average of about 565,000 West Texas Intermediate futures per day on CME’s New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) during the period.
The quarter was the first in which ICE Brent futures’ average volumes exceeded those of Nymex WTI futures, according to Energy Intelligence, a market research firm. Nymex and ICE do smaller volumes of business in Brent and WTI contracts, respectively.

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