Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX) on Wednesday launched its futures trading in gasoline contracts. MCX is the first exchange in the country to launch the full basket of energy products including crude oil, heating oil and natural gas.
Initially, Gasoline July, August and September 2009 contracts are available for futures trading from Wednesday. On the first day of trading, July, August and September contracts prices were traded at Rs 93, Rs 92.25 and Rs 88.85 per US gallon (3.78 litre). ?After crude oil and natural gas futures, gasoline contracts will be the better option in the energy basket for trading as gasoline prices share a great correlation with crude oil prices world over,? a leading analyst said. ?The correlation is over 90%. To make the most of this, refiners in developed countries use crude oil and gasoline futures contracts collectively to lock-in their refinery margin. The same can be done for heating oil also as price correlation in that case is around 99%,? he said.
At present, the New York Mercantile Exchange has liquid contracts in gasoline.