Futures Contract
The DME’s flagship contract is the Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract, launched on the 1st June 2007, which became the largest physically delivered crude oil contract in the region. The physical settlement of the contract gives it a unique aspect whereby the front trading month is two months forward (e.g.: the March contract is the front month during January trading).
Total number of barrels traded per year on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange through the Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract:
| 2007* | 200,892,000 barrels |
| 2008 | 322,294,000 barrels |
| 2009 | 551,866,000 barrels |
| 2010 | 744,727,000 barrels |
* the exchanged opened on the 1st June 2007. 1,000 barrels = 1 lot (or contract). Figures are from the DME website
With over 144 million barrels delivered through the exchange in 2010 and more than 50 companies trading the contract regularly, it seems that the DME Oman oil benchmark has been accepted by market participants as a regulated and transparent benchmark for the East of Suez market.
Read more about this topic: Dubai Mercantile Exchange
Famous quotes containing the words futures and/or contract:
“One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“A good businessman never makes a contract unless he’s sure he can carry it through, yet every fool on earth is perfectly willing to sign a marriage contract without considering whether he can live up to it or not.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)