CME Group announced Wednesday that the first Iron Ore 58 percent Fe, Low Alumina, CFR China (TSI) Futures contracts were cleared on 8 December 2014, through CME ClearPort. The first trade was executed between Caravel Metallurgical Ltd and a large international trading house, and brokered by GFI Group. A total of 20 lots traded in the January 2015 contract on 8 December.
"We are excited to see healthy support and interest in our new Iron Ore 58 percent Fe, Low Alumina, CFR China (TSI) Futures contract on day one," said Yvonne Zhang, Director, Metals Products, Asia, CME Group. "The addition of this new iron ore futures contract to our Virtual Steel Mill suite of ferrous metals products, will help
us better address industry participants' needs of managing their risks across multiple sources of volatility."
"We are pleased to be the first to broker a trade on the new Iron Ore 58 percent Fe, Low Alumina, CFR China (TSI) Futures contract," said Toby Joyce, Iron Ore Desk Head at GFI. "This new contract adds to the broad array of risk management products we offer our clients in the iron ore, coal and freight derivatives arena."
"We at Caravel Metallurgical Ltd are very pleased to be a party to the first trade of the TSI-settled Iron Ore 58 percent Fe, Low Alumina futures contract," said Henrietta Lee, Managing Director of Caravel Metallurgical Limited. "As an active participant in both the physical and derivatives markets on iron ore, we have long regarded the launch of such a contract to be an important step in broadening price risk management options."