More than 512,300 metric tons of commodities valued at about $211 million were traded at the Iran Mercantile Exchange’s spot market in the week ended May 20, indicating nearly 36% and 23% increase in trade volume and value respectively compared with the previous week, IME public relations reported.
The IME’s agricultural trading floor wrapped up the weekly trade with close to 34,500 tons of corn, 700 tons of rice, and 500 tons oily seeds picked up by local customers.
Around 226,809 tons of commodities, amounting to $94.2 million were traded on the industrial and mining trading floor, including 109,353 tons of steel sections, 100,000 tons of iron ore, 9,450 tons of copper of various grades, 100 tons of molybdenum sulfur and 7,900 tons of aluminum and precious metals concentrates.
The oil and petrochemical trading floor played host to both local and overseas customers trading about 247,449 tons of commodities, valued at more than $10.6 million. Commodities including 91,622 tons of bitumen of various grades, 35,647 tons of polymers, 64,000 tons of vacuum bottoms, 34,500 tons of lube-cut oil, 11,821 tons of chemicals, 1,000 tons of slap wax, 878 tons of roof insulation, 7,960 tons of sulfur and 20 tons of liquefied argon and feedstock were traded in the week.
Trade of some commodities such as vacuum bottoms, bitumen, roof insulation, corn, rice, copper, precious metals concentrate and aluminum recorded growth compared to the prior trading week.
Lingering Concerns About Petrochemicals
The customers are highly cautious when it comes to purchasing petrochemical commodities due mainly to fluctuations in U.S. dollar prices at unofficial exchange markets and the expectations for fresh base prices of petrochemical commodities at the IME.
While shortage of liquidity in the petrochemical sector has led to lower trade volume, with Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) recording the lowest trade volume among other petrochemical goods; some commodities remain unaffected by the market jitters and are still on the IME’s limelight, imereport.ir announced without elaborating.
Soybean Meal Future Contracts
In bid to diversify the base properties at the IME’ derivative market, soybean meal future contracts will be launched from June 6, IME’s head Hossein Panahian was quoted as saying.
“The IME is geared up to inaugurate soybean future contracts in a bid to help the investors hedge their risks, expand the derivatives’ instruments and schedule long-term plans for supply and demand,” Panahian noted.
Soybean was listed at the IME since about 15 months ago, said Panahian, adding that intense meetings have been held with the market-participants and brokers which have paved the way for launching soybeans future contracts in the near future.
Soybean is an important product in the agricultural commodities market and one of the most essential cattle feeds besides corn, said Panahian. “As much as 2.5 million tons of soybean is consumed in the country annually, most of which is used for cattle feed,” he added.
