World's first futures market for bitumen

Many factors including volatility in crude oil prices as well as the supply and demand imbalance in the bitumen market have exposed bitumen enterprises to operational risks.

"Without a hedging tool, producers are quite vulnerable to fluctuating prices," said Lu Yu, sales manager of a Shanghai-based trading company.

Market insiders said the introduction of bitumen futures contract trading will help the improvement of the pricing mechanism of the road-building material. Exchanges may learn valuable lessons from the launch when preparing for futures contracts trading of other petroleum products.

"Bitumen futures might be slightly volatile at the beginning because of a lack of liquidity and a higher bid and ask spread. However, with more synchronization with the spot market, price volatility will decline gradually. Futures prices will also give producers more guidance on prices," said Zhou Lei, an analyst with Xinhu Futures Co Ltd.

Bitumen futures have a strong trading practicality because they are easy to standardize, which eliminates problems when settling accounts, said Zhou.