Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, has announced the launch of its first futures contracts based on battery materials. This marks a significant expansion of ICE’s energy and environmental markets—already some of the most liquid globally—into the critical minerals space.
The new offering includes four cash-settled futures contracts covering lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate, cobalt, and spodumene. These contracts are based on Fastmarkets’ widely recognized price assessments and aim to support growing demand for risk management tools in the battery materials sector.
Our customers are navigating increasing geopolitical risk and shifting trade flows in critical minerals and broader energy markets,” said Jeff Barbuto, Global Head of Oil Markets at ICE. “These new contracts are a vital addition to our energy derivatives portfolio. We’re excited to collaborate with the battery materials industry to build liquidity and deliver added value through our trading and clearing platform.”
Fastmarkets echoed the importance of the collaboration. “The battery raw materials industry depends on Fastmarkets’ trusted benchmarks to enable trade and investment,” said Przemek Koralewski, Global Head of Market Development at Fastmarkets. “Partnering with ICE further empowers this growing market with the essential risk management tools it needs.”
The battery materials futures now join ICE’s extensive network of over 800 crude and refined oil products, anchored by Brent—benchmark for three-quarters of the world’s internationally traded crude—and ICE Low Sulphur Gasoil, the global benchmark for refined oil products at the heart of middle distillates trading.
ICE continues to see record-breaking growth across its energy products. On May 29, 2025, Gasoil futures and options reached a record open interest (OI) of 1.43 million contracts, up 29% year-over-year. Gasoil Options also hit a single-day volume record of 22,650 contracts on May 20, 2025, surpassing the previous record set in May 2016.
In May 2025, ICE’s global oil benchmarks hit new highs in OI:
- ICE Brent futures reached 2.9 million contracts,
- ICE WTI (Cushing) futures and options climbed to 1.7 million on May 8,
- ICE Murban futures achieved a record 85,365 contracts on May 29.
Overall, OI across ICE’s futures and options platform hit an all-time high of 104.6 million contracts on May 23, 2025—an 8% increase year-over-year—including record levels of 41.8 million commodity futures and 40 million energy futures.
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.(NYSE: ICE) is a Fortune 500 company that designs, builds and operates digital networks that connect people to opportunity. We provide financial technology and data services across major asset classes helping our customers access mission-critical workflow tools that increase transparency and efficiency. ICE’s futures, equity, and options exchanges– including the New York Stock Exchange– and clearing houseshelp people invest, raise capital and manage risk. We offer some of the world’s largest markets to trade and clear energy and environmental products. Our fixed income, data services and execution capabilities provide information, analytics and platforms that help our customers streamline processes and capitalize on opportunities. At ICE Mortgage Technology, we are transforming U.S. housing finance, from initial consumer engagement through loan production, closing, registration and the long-term servicing relationship. Together, ICE transforms, streamlines and automates industries to connect our customers to opportunity.
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