Due to greater participation of traders and high volatility in the global crude market has resulted in rising trend in crude oil volumes in Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX). Crude oil volumes on the MCX platform touched a record 10.19 million barrels on Wednesday.
Average daily volumes were around 4 million barrels per day last fiscal, which has increased to around 7 million barrels per day with highest volume touching 13 million barrels on May 15, 2008.
Meanwhile, during April ? May, open interest and turnover have gone up on MCX. The open interest in crude oil rose from around 1.2 million barrels on April 1, 2008 to over 3 million barrels on May 1, 2008. Currently it is around 1.9 million barrels.
In terms of rupees, the turnover of oil futures on MCX has risen from around Rs 2,500 crore a day to around Rs 3,200 crore a day.
?Indian commodity exchanges are not price setter for crude oil. Any volatilityat global level results in greater investor participation,? Debjyoti Chatterjee, head research, Mape Admisi Commodities Pvt Ltd, told FE.
However, through participation from oil majors such as Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Indian Oil and Airlines could further increase the volume.
?Due to high volatility of crude oil prices, companies can use the futures market platform to lock in price risk in advance,? a trader in MCX said.
Crude oil volumes on the MCX are close to 10% that of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYME). Soaring crude oil prices are attracting equity investors to the commodity market, a trader said.