On July 10, the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world's premier exchange for base metals, steel billet and plastics, released an unaudited statement for trading volumes during the first half of 2009.
According to the LME statement, total lots traded on the exchange rose by 1.8 percent to 55,185,086 million compared to the year-ago period, while daily average volumes rose by 2.6 percent to 445,041 lots, due to 2008 being a leap year.
"Among the contracts showing the highest volume growth in 2009, the tin futures and options volume grew by 71.6 percent to 1,316,440 lots traded in the first half of 2009, while nickel volumes grew 19.4 percent to 3,085,672 lots and Copper Grade A grew by 3.3 percent to 13,570,101 lots over the same period. Futures and options volumes in Primary HG aluminum, the LME's largest contract, were slightly down to 25,160,501 lots, representing a contraction of 2.8 percent," the LME said in its report.
The LME also registered strong growth in trading of its extended prompt dates launched last September where High Grade Primary Aluminium and Copper Grade A contracts were extended from 63 months to 123 months (ten years), Special High Grade Zinc and Primary Nickel from 27 months to 63 months (five years), and Standard Lead from 15 months to 63 months (five years). In total, 153,191 lots of the new extended prompt dates were traded between January and June.
Commenting on the first half trading volumes, LME CEO Martin Abbott said, "The LME is proving to be an attractive place to do business during the downturn with continued growth in trading volumes despite tough market conditions. Our core non-ferrous metals contracts continue to grow and we are also seeing encouraging volumes in our new products - particularly in the extended prompt date offerings and in the Mediterranean steel billet contract."
As SteelOrbis recently reported, the LME said that 12,284 lots of steel billet contracts were traded in the first six months of 2009, representing 798,460 mt of material with a value of $263.4 million.
Last year, turnover for the LME was $10.24 trillion and it currently has 5.13 million mt of metals on warrant in 516 warehouses across 38 locations globally.