China's crude oil futures boom amid looming Iran sanctions

Reuters  |  SINGAPORE/BEIJING 

By and Meng

Since launching in March, have seen a steady pick-up in daily trading, while open interest - the number of outstanding longer-term positions and a gauge of institutional interest - has also surged.

Traded daily volumes hit a record 250,000 lots last Wednesday, more than double the day before, spurred by of the sanctions.

The jump helped the front-month futures contract account for 12 percent of the global oil market last week, up from just 8 percent in week one.

"The contract is thundering into action," said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia/Pacific at in

The world's biggest importer of crude oil, hopes the contract will eventually rival international benchmarks Brent and benchmark

The ascent of Shanghai crude is aided by China's voracious demand for oil, with imports hitting a record in April of 9.6 million barrels per day.

is also the biggest buyer of Iranian crude oil, and the recent boost in trading volume at least in part flowed from the sanctions decision, said Barry White, at firm

"The sanctions... can potentially accelerate this process of establishing a 3rd (oil) benchmark," White said.

took almost a quarter of Iran's exports in 2017, meeting around 8 percent of its import needs, leaving both sides exposed to the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Anticipating shortages, speculators helped push the Shanghai contract to a dollar-converted record high of around $75.40 per barrel last week, outpacing gains on rival benchmarks, while Chinese refiners hedged their facilities against increased feedstock prices.

"Chinese refiners are worried as costs of purchasing crude rise... and showed a strong interest in using Shanghai Crude for hedging in the wake of the sanctions," said Zhang Huiyao,

YUAN TRADING

also wants to establish the yuan in physical oil markets, which would avoid the cost of exchanging dollars and increase the use of the renmimbi in global financial trade.

State-owned refining has already inked a import deal against Shanghai crude, with plans being developed to sign more such contracts.

Reimposed sanctions on could give China leverage to demand from the country be priced off Shanghai's crude futures.

"It makes sense for Iran to begin selling oil under contracts denominated in yuan rather than dollars," said OANDA's Innes.

However, Iranian oil is not among the types of crude deliverable through the Shanghai exchange mechanism.

To price it off Shanghai futures, traders would have to agree to transact Iranian crude through buying opposite positions in Shanghai futures and then swapping those positions Exchange of Futures for Physical (EFP) contract that would account for the price difference between Iranian oil and the Shanghai futures price.

Traders said China may also not want to push back too hard against

"I don't think China will be able to use the sanctions as a leverage to price Iranian imports in yuan... It is more likely that China will curb Iranian imports," said Huatai's Zhang.

"They (China) will grumble and accept it," added Fereidun Fesharaki, founder and of consultancy FGE.

"There is no one who will realistically choose Iran over the "

(Reporting by in and in BEIJING; Writing by Henning Gloystein; editing by Richard Pullin)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Mon, May 14 2018. 13:24 IST