NSE to introduce Brent Crude Oil futures contract on March 1

NSE has worked closely with ICIS to design a robust system that brings international best practice to help customers in India to access global crude markets

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday said it will launch its crude oil futures contract on Friday, and has signed an agreement with ICIS, a leading global market information provider for the energy and petrochemical markets, to license its BFOE (Brent-Forties-Oseberg-Ekofisk) market data. The NSE has worked closely with ICIS to design a robust system that brings international best practice to help customers to access global crude markets. 

As part of the daily compilation of the index, the NSE is licensing ICIS BFOE assessment data, which is produced five times a day in accordance with established ICIS methodologies. 

Vikram Limaye, managing director and chief executive officer of NSE, said: “India being the third largest consumer of crude oil in the world, after the US and China, required an efficient hedging mechanism. This product will provide an opportunity to market participants for accessing the global crude oil markets and hedging their risk.’’

The NSE is offering brent oil contract. This makes all the major crude oil variants available for hedging to Indian players.