The London Metal Exchange has reached what it called the “milestone” of $1bn of trades in its Steel Billet Futures since they were launched in February last year.
By August 26, over 35,000 contracts had been exchanged in those 18 months, covering 2.3m metric tonnes of steel billet – strips of steel used for making a wide variety of products.
The billion dollar mark was passed on the afternoon of Wednesday August 19, after strong trading activity in July when more than 3,500 Mediterranean Steel Billet contracts were traded – equivalent to around 229,000 tonnes of steel.
Liz Milan, commercial director at the LME, says the figure shows the “endorsement of the contract” by the steel industry.
Lotta Ulfsdotter, business manager for steel at the LME, said in a statement on August 20 that the result showed “the solid foundations that the...