Corporate Communications

The Economic Times

NSE gets Sebi nod to launch options on WTI crude and natural gas futures contracts.

India's leading exchange National Stock Exchange (NSE) will launch options on WTI crude oil and natural gas futures contracts in its commodity derivatives segment.

The launch date will be announced soon.

WTI crude oil is a specific grade of crude oil and one of the main three benchmarks in oil pricing, along with Brent and Dubai Crude. WTI is the underlying commodity of the New York Mercantile Exchange's (NYMEX) oil futures contract and is considered a high-quality oil that is easily refined.

Earlier in May, the exchange had launched the rupee denominated NYMEX WTI crude oil and natural gas futures contracts in its commodity derivatives segment.

NSE said it has witnessed a positive response from market participants in the WTI crude oil and natural gas futures contracts as more than 100 trading members across regions have transacted in these contracts since the launch.

"The addition of options on futures contracts will further boost NSE's product offering in the overall commodity segment. These contracts are designed to provide the market participants, particularly corporates, value chain participants and foreign portfolio investors with a more efficient way to manage their commodity risk," the exchange said in a statement.

"It gives us immense pleasure to inform the market participants that NSE is planning to launch options on NYMEX WTI crude oil and natural gas futures contracts in October. This is a significant step towards our aim of providing the market participants with a suite of dynamic and robust financial products," said Sriram Krishnan, Chief Business Development Officer, NSE.

"We would like to thank all the market participants for showing their trust and confidence in the NSE WTI crude oil and natural gas futures gas contracts and we are confident that the same will continue with the options on futures contracts as well," Krishnan added.

NSE is the world's largest derivatives exchange by trading volume, as per statistics maintained by Futures Industry Association for FY22. The exchange is ranked third in the world in the cash equities market by number of trades.

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