Natural gas traders are scrambling to manage volatility and uncertainty in U.S. and global prices, resulting in a frenzy of hedging activity across the markets served by Intercontinental Exchange Inc., aka ICE.

The financial futures and physical exchange operator said Thursday (March 30) that open interest across ICE North American natural gas futures had hit a record high of 17.45 million contracts on Tuesday (March 28).

In futures and options, open interest was up 17% year/year at 27.84 million contracts, with volumes up 15% and average daily volume year-to-date of one million contracts.

As of March 28, ICE’s total natural gas complex spanning U.S., Canadian, European, UK and northeast Asian benchmarks for natural gas and LNG, also hit record open interest of 19.19...