Mini Gasoline Swaps Cleared Against Argus Prices

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Apr 03, 2012, 11:35 ET

LONDON, April 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The CME has successfully launched a new hedging tool for European gasoline based on Rotterdam prices published by international energy and commodity price reporting agency Argus.

The CME mini gasoline swap contract of 100t lots, which is priced against the Argus Rotterdam gasoline price assessments, was launched on 12 March. By the end of March it had cleared 665 lots, or 66,500t of gasoline.

The mini gasoline swap has a smaller lot size than the standard-size swap contract of 1,000t lots and therefore has smaller margin requirements and clearing fees. Volumes for the standard-sized gasoline swap contract also saw significant growth in the first quarter of 2012, with cleared volumes rising by 72% compared with the fourth quarter of 2011 to just below 26,000 lots (26 million t).

The standard-sized and mini gasoline swaps are cleared against the Argus Euro-bob Oxy ARA barge assessment as published in the daily Argus European Products report.

Argus Media chairman and chief executive Adrian Binks said: "We are delighted that the CME's new contract has got off to such a good start. It is a useful tool for customers who want to hedge smaller volumes and it opens up risk management opportunities to companies which were previously unable or unwilling to use the standard size swap."

For further information:
Seana Lanigan
+44 20 7780 4200
[email protected]

About Argus
Argus Media is a leading provider of price assessments, business intelligence and market data on the global crude, oil products, natural gas, electricity, coal, emissions, bioenergy, fertilizer and transportation industries. It is headquartered in London and has offices in Houston, Washington, New York, Portland, Calgary, Santiago, Bogota, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Dubai, Moscow, Astana, Kiev, Porto, Brussels and Johannesburg and other key centres of the energy industry. Argus was founded in 1970 and is a privately held UK-registered company.