Economic security

China to launch yuan-denominated crude futures

China will launch a long-awaited crude oil futures contract on March 26, the country's securities regulator said on Friday, a move that Chinese analysts hoped might eventually see the formation of a globally influential crude futures market.

The launch at the Shanghai International Energy Exchange by the China Securities Regulatory Commission is not the country's first attempt.

A petroleum exchange set up in the early 1990s soon closed due to what analysts dub "reform and market factors."

The reopened crude oil futures will be traded in lot sizes of 1,000 barrels and the settlement will be in Chinese yuan, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.

Shanghai crude futures will provide a tool for domestic traders to hedge risks, Xinhua cited analysts as saying.

The Shanghai market could compete for the benchmark in the Asia-Pacific region and become a part of the 24-hour global trading procession alongside international benchmark Brent and US West Texas Intermediate futures, Chinese experts were quoted as saying.

It's a long-awaited move by China, the world's top crude importer, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Saturday.