Transactions in commodity exchange market exceed one trillion rubles
As of the end of 2020, the commodity spot market expanded by more than 12% as compared to 2019, reaching 1,076 billion rubles. These findings are published in the Bank of Russia’s review Commodity Exchange Market Analysis for 2020.
The structure of the organised commodity market remained unchanged, with petroleum products and natural gas still accounting for a significant portion in this market, namely 96.9% of the overall trading volume.
The amount of transactions with petroleum products was up by 11%, to total 987.2 billion rubles. Vertically integrated oil companies accounted for the largest portion in trading quantities. They were able to satisfy the domestic demand for fuels.
The natural gas market recorded an emerging positive trend for the first time in recent years: trades increased by 27% to 56.6 billion rubles owing to larger sales by producers. An important event of the previous year was the launch of the mechanism for commercial balancing of gas flows with the engagement of the commodity delivery operator, which made it possible to resell unused gas.
Furthermore, spot trading in sugar was organised in 2020 — it is carried out as a bilateral anonymous auction using simple clearing. The forward market started trading in deliverable futures contracts for wheat.