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Traditionally one of the more popular spreads was the IPE Brent Crude against the NYMEX WTI Crude. To execute this spread it was necessary to deal online on the IPE and then on the floor on NYMEX as two separate orders.
The listing of WTI Crude on the ICE (IPE) platform has made it possible to trade both legs of the Brent/WTI spread online, considerably reducing the risk associated with buying or selling the spread at a specific level.
The listing of Middle East Sour Crude on the ICE platform means the three oil benchmarks are now available on one platform, making it possible to trade the Brent/Middle East, WTI/Middle East, and Brent/WTI spreads all in one place, with considerable costs savings and greatly reducing the risk associated with buying or selling the individual legs.
The recent listing of electronically traded New York Harbor Unleaded Gasoline Blendstock (RBOB) Futures and ICE New York Harbor Heating Oil Futures, has created the opportunity to trade three spreads or “cracks” between new and existing contracts.
These “cracks” are based on the spread between the price of ICE’s West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude futures contract and its new Heating Oil and Unleaded Gasoline futures contracts. When crude is refined, it produces usable products, such as heating oil and unleaded gasoline. The crack is the spread, or price differential, between the refined product and the price of crude oil. The ICE Heating Oil Crack and the ICE RBOB Unleaded Gasoline Crack are available with a single click on the ICE trading platform.
In addition, ICE Futures has launched a Gas Oil Crack representing the spread between its benchmark IPE Brent Crude Futures contract and its IPE Gas Oil Futures contract. Its Gas Oil futures contract is now the world’s most actively traded heating oil futures contract, with average daily volume of 60,944 contracts in February.
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