News & Events

Dubai Mercantile Exchange Reports Exchange Wide Open Interest Exceeds 5,400 Contracts
Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Number of Open Interest reflects strong confidence in the DME

The Dubai Mercantile Exchange Limited (DME) announced today that the Exchange-wide open interest reached 5,414 contracts upon the conclusion of business on June 18, 2007. This significant achievement was reached only twelve trading days after the Exchange launched its initial three contracts on June 1.

Since inception, the DME has seen steady trading volumes across its two financially settled spread contracts, the WTI-Oman Spread Contract and Brent-Oman Spread Contract, and the first and only physically delivered Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract which is set to become the global benchmark for Middle East sour crude oil. Due to strong support from its over 60 members and global customer base, total Exchange volumes continue to grow in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America.

The sum of the average of the DME daily settlement prices for the current month will be the Oman Ministry of Oil & Gas' Official Selling Price (OSP) for August crude oil deliveries. To date, settlements for the first twelve days have already been published, and the remaining settlements will continue to be determined by the market until the August contract terminates on the last business day of June.

Ahmad Sharaf, Chairman of the DME, said "We are very pleased with the growth in volume and open interest on the Middle East's first international energy futures and commodities Exchange. To have reached this milestone so shortly after launch is extremely encouraging to us.

"Since our launch we received tremendous feedback from our members, customers and market participants stating that the Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract is on its way to becoming the global benchmark for Middle East sour crude oil."