ICE’s North American Financial Natural Gas Markets Hit Record Open Interest | LeapRate
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) revealed on Tuesday that its North American Financial Natural Gas futures and options markets reached record open interest of 13.4 million contracts on 1 July 2026, up 9% year-on-year.
ICE’s North American Financial Natural Gas contracts price the differential between each regional hub and the U.S. natural gas benchmark Henry Hub.
Hubs that have seen strong open interest growth this year include Alberta NIT basis futures, up 13%, Houston Ship Channel basis futures, up 16%, Waha basis futures, up 15%, and NGPL TexOk basis futures, up 51%.
Cleared physical Canadian natural gas volumes are up 9% year-on-year at ICE NGX, which offers clearing for physical natural gas delivered at hubs across North America.
Brian Lewis, VP of North American Natural Gas and Power at ICE, stated that natural gas markets have “entered a structurally more complex era,” with the U.S. simultaneously the world’s largest LNG exporter while infrastructure investments, surging power demand and a strengthening El Niño pull supply and demand in different directions across the country.
Lewis added that new pipeline capacity is beginning to “debottleneck some of the most constrained production regions, reshaping basis relationships that participants have traded around for years,” with ICE’s markets spanning more than 70 hubs.
ICE’s Henry Hub futures offer deep liquidity for managing long-term exposure to U.S. benchmark natural gas prices, with open interest up 8% year-on-year at 25.7 million contracts. ICE’s global power futures markets also hit record open interest of 3.6 million contracts on 1 July, up 7% year-on-year.
