SCB Group, the world-leading, low carbon commodity brokerage, is proud to announce that it brokered the first lithium cash-settled futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) on Sunday, May 2nd, 2021.
Five tonnes were traded between Mercuria and Traxys for June 2021 at $14.25/kg. The trade was made five minutes into the launch of CME’s new Lithium Hydroxide CIF CJK (Fastmarkets) futures contract Sunday evening at 5:05pm North American Central Standard Time.
“We are excited to have executed the first trades of Lithium futures,” said Jean-François Steels, Vice President of Energy Transition at Mercuria, one of the world’s largest privately-held integrated energy and commodities companies. “These new contracts provide critical hedging needs and more efficient price discovery at a time when businesses are investing heavily in the production of batteries and electric vehicles. We applaud CME Group for being first to bring these solutions to the marketplace.”
“We are pleased with the launch of the new CME Lithium Hydroxide CIF CJK (Fastmarkets) futures contract and for SCB Group’s assistance in hedging our physical book. Traxys is excited to have been the first to trade lithium on an exchange anywhere in the world”, said Kevin Smith, Managing Director of Energy Metals at Traxys.
CME’s Lithium Hydroxide CIF CJK (Fastmarkets) Contract has the goal to help market participants manage their battery metals price risk. Having launched the Cobalt Metal (Fastmarkets) futures contract back in December 2020, this is CME’s new financial tool to help advance the global green transport transition.
“The launch of a futures lithium hydroxide contract by the CME Group is quite important for the lithium industry. It will provide a very useful hedging tool for companies looking to manage their price risk and exposure to the lithium market. At the same time, it will offer the price visibility and transparency that the lithium market needs to help companies and governments in their decisions. At SCB Group, we are proud of working with the different stakeholders that want to get involved with this new contract” said Martim Facada, Battery Materials Broker at SCB Group.
SCB’s mission is to promote the adoption of a low carbon future. The increasing uptake of electric vehicles in tandem with continuously improving EV battery efficiency will ultimately result in global carbon emission reduction. Our battery materials team is closely aligned with the market’s needs and is very pleased to offer tailored to our customers’ needs brokerage solutions in lithium, cobalt and nickel.
To learn more about CME’s new Lithium Futures contract, please visit: https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/other/lithium-futures.html
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Pauline Tainton, Marketing Manager, SCB + 41 22 365 5307
