The crude oil futures market has felt the rise of U.S. crude oil exports with growing volumes of West Texas Intermediate futures and options traded in Asian and European hours, making the WTI contract an almost 24-hour benchmark , Owain Johnson, managing director for energy research and development at exchange operator CME Group, said on Thursday. South Korea and China are the fastest-growing trading communities on WTI, Johnson said at the Argus Global Crude 2018 conference in Geneva. “Ten to 20 percent of our daily volumes are trading in European and Asian hours… names that we never came across are now regulars,” Johnson said, as quoted by Reuters. “You’re getting a 23-hour benchmark,” he added. The CME trading shuts down for an hour for maintenance every day. The exchange operator has been adding new U.S. oil contracts because it has seen a lot of interest in the spreads to […]