Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), a premier international energy futures and commodities exchange in the Middle East, said it has achieved a major milestone reaching the 4 billion barrel mark with a total of four million contracts traded on the exchange.

This comes just 10 months after the DME passed the 3 billion mark and continues the trend of strong trading growth on the exchange.

The 4 millionth trade on DME took place at 12:28 pm (local time) yesterday between Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp, and the Anglo–Swiss multinational commodities trader, Glencore, highlighting DME Oman's position as the most credible benchmark for oil trading for the Asian markets.

DME Oman remains the largest physically delivered crude oil futures contract in the world, with the exchange trading the equivalent of more than 1 billion barrels of oil for the first time in one year during 2012.

Christopher Fix, the DME chief executive said, "After delivering strong trading growth in 2012, DME has sprinted out of the blocks at the start of 2013, with record window volumes helping us pass the 4 billion barrels traded mark."

"The fact that our 4 millionth trade was carried out between one of  Asia’s largest trading houses and one of the world’s largest commodities traders, underlines how we are attracting increasing amounts of quality liquidity to DME," he added.

"With the increasing influence of countries such as China and India on global crude oil markets, DME is perfectly positioned to bridge these two sub-continents and provide the only appropriate benchmark for, and gateway into, the rapidly expanding East of Suez crude oil corridor."

Mitsubishi Corp expressed delight at contributing to DME’s success in trading their 4 millionth contract.

Steven McBain, the crude oil trading manager at Glencore Singapore said, "It is fantastic to be a part of the ongoing success of DME as it reaches the milestones of 4 million trades and 4 billion barrels. Glencore plans to continue to grow its business on the DME and support the exchange in its drive to align itself with global commodities markets."

DME is a joint venture between Dubai Holding, Oman Investment Fund and CME Group. Global financial institutions and energy trading firms including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Shell, Vitol and Concord Energy also hold equity stakes in the DME.

It aims to provide oil producers, traders and consumers engaged in the East of Suez markets with transparent pricing of crude oil.-TradeArabia News Service