Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) today announced that a record number of TTF natural gas futures and options traded during May 2023 as the market manages natural gas price risk exposure.

A record 5.7 million TTF futures and options traded during May, equivalent to a record 4,158 Terawatt hours.

Liquidity in ICE’s benchmark TTF market has grown strongly in 2023 with open interest up 37% year-over-year (y/y) at 2.6 million contracts, the highest level since January 2022. In addition, ICE is seeing record market participation in its TTF futures and options markets, with hedging out to December 2031.

“ICE TTF is the global benchmark for natural gas. The TTF futures market sends price signals which market participants rely upon to manage their global natural gas price exposure, as well as pricing the flow of natural gas in Europe,” said Gordon Bennett, Managing Director of Utility Markets at ICE.

Approximately 25 million TTF contracts have traded on ICE this year, up 17% y/y, with particularly strong activity in TTF Options where volume is up 179% y/y and open interest is up 68% y/y. Over one million TTF options traded in the month of May, the second highest volume month since TTF Options were launched on ICE Endex in 2013.

Open interest across ICE’s global natural gas portfolio is 31 million contracts, up 10% y/y. ICE offers the broadest range of benchmarks to support the liberalization of natural gas markets, including U.S. natural gas benchmark Henry Hub, European natural gas benchmark TTF and TTF 1st line future, Canadian natural gas benchmark AECO, UK natural gas benchmark NBP, and ICE JKM LNG (Platts) the benchmark price for natural gas for North-East Asia. Natural gas is one part of ICE’s extensive energy markets where open interest is at 47 million contracts, up 8% y/y.