Crude oil futures closed higher on Friday in daytime trading on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange.
The most active crude oil contract for June delivery was up 7.5 yuan (about 1.16 dollars) to close at 420.1 yuan a barrel.
The total trading volume for 13 listed crude oil futures contracts on the exchange was 168,820 lots, with a turnover of about 70.8 billion yuan.
China launched the crude oil futures trading, which was open to overseas investment, in March 2018.
It is the biggest oil importer in the world, and three years ago today, it launched its own crude oil futures benchmark in Shanghai.
The total trade volume of the Shanghai Crude Oil Futures has reached 44 trillion yuan, or 6.7 trillion dollars, with overseas clients spanning across 23 countries and regions.
The Chinese yuan-denominated Shanghai Crude Oil Futures, which was launched in March 2018. Three years in, it’s already the third biggest oil contract by volume.
And 2020, those who bet on prices altogether on the Shanghai Crude Oil Futures, in turn, helped the economy in a way many hadn’t anticipated.
On the other hand, by March and April of 2020, Chinese factories were anticipating a gradual resumption of production in the months ahead.
This, combined with other factors, pushed demand for oil from China back up. The result was that Shanghai Oil Futures were priced higher than other global contracts.
Many oil companies grabbed at the opportunity. They sold crude futures contracts in the Shanghai market, effectively locking in a fixed price for future deliveries that was higher than in other markets at the time.
Buyers of the contacts in China saw these futures as great bargains in the long term as well, since you never know when oil prices will rebound.
