Financial oil trading is booming, hitting records this year, with volumes in U.S. contracts outpacing growth elsewhere on the back of the U.S. shale oil boom. Trading data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows 2017 volumes for U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) front-month futures, the most exchanged contracts, will hit a record of nearly 150 million. This is more than double the 71 million trades for spot Brent futures, the international benchmark, further widening a gap that has yawned open as U.S. crude output has surged nearly 70 percent over the past five years. The trend is also showing in market open interest, the number of daily open contracts across all months, where WTI started edging ahead of Brent in September. Oil producers use derivative markets to lock in profits while buyers aim to protect themselves against rising prices, with liquidity further boosted by a raft […]