BIZCHINA / Oil Price Hike
Futures trade enhances oil price-fixing capacity
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-08-25 11:51
BEIJING -- Friday marks the two-year anniversary of fuel oil trade on the
Shanghai Futures Exchange (SFE) and the increasingly brisk trade has led
to the development of a price-fixing system based on supply and demand in
China's fuel oil market.
On August 25, 2004, trading of fuel oil opened on the SFE. In 2005, the
daily trade of fuel oil had reached 76,000 tons. This year it is 110,000
tons.
From August 2004 to July 31, 2006, the total turnover of fuel oil trade
on the SFE had reached 1.25 trillion yuan (156 billion U.S. dollars),
with the daily volume averaging 2.666 billion yuan.
About 140 to 160 SFE members participate in the trading each day and
renowned overseas and Chinese business media organisations, including
Reuters, Dow Jones and HC International, submit daily trading reports.
This trade will help China's fuel oil transactions adjust prices in
accordance with supply and demand on the international market and avoid
risks, said Ma Weifeng, a researcher at Shanghai-based Tongji University.
China used to fix prices of fuel oil products according to changes of
supply and demand in Singapore's oil market.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
Learn Mandarin online
