Derivatives exchange CME Group (Chicago, Illinois / USA; www.cmegroup.com) started trading in plastics at the beginning of November 2008 with the launch of two plastics futures contracts on the ClearPort trading platform. The contracts and their commodity codes are: polypropylene (P1) and polyethylene (P6). They will be listed for 24 consecutive months, beginning with the January 2009 contract, and will be 47,000 lb (21 t) in size. They will feature physical delivery in Houston.

This is the first time a major plastics futures offering has been made in North America. The London Metal Exchange (LME, www.lme.com) began trading plastics futures in May 2005 – see Plasteurope.com of 19.05.2005 – and a market opened in Dubai in 2007 – see Plasteurope.com of 15.06.2007.