CME Group to Launch Lithium Carbonate Futures as Electric Vehicle Demand Surges

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Jun 20, 2023, 09:00 ET

CHICAGO, June 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that it will launch a Lithium Carbonate futures contract on July 17, 2023, pending all relevant regulatory reviews.

Lithium Carbonate CIF CJK (Fastmarkets) will be financially-settled based on the battery-grade Lithium Carbonate assessment published by Fastmarkets. Lithium Carbonate futures are complementary to CME Group's Lithium Hydroxide CIF CJK (Fastmarkets) futures and will help establish a forward curve for Lithium Carbonate, offering market participants more transparency and choice for their different battery chemistry preferences.

"As electric vehicle sales continue to surge, we are pleased to introduce a second Lithium futures contract, which will provide market participants with more tools to manage price risk across a variety of raw battery materials," said Jin Chang, Managing Director and Global Head of Metals at CME Group. "CME Group first entered the battery metals space just a few years ago and has quickly become the venue of choice for managing EV risk. Open interest in our Cobalt contract recently hit a record of over 20,000 tons, and trading in our Lithium Hydroxide contract has already surpassed full-year 2022 volume, with over 2,000 tons traded year-to date, versus 400 tons last year."

CME Group offers risk management products across a wide range of electric vehicle components, including battery metals, Copper, Silver, Aluminum and Steel. These products continue to grow along with Cobalt and Lithium:

Copper futures and options volume year-to-date is up 38%
Aluminum futures volume year-to-date is up 305%
Silver futures and options volume year-to-date is up 15%
Steel futures and options volume year-to-date is up 28%

Lithium Carbonate futures will be listed by and subject to the rules of COMEX. For contract specifications, or for more information on CME Group's battery metals products, please visit: http://cmegroup.com/lithiumcarbonate.

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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