Kicking off 2002 on a strong note, IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) posted a notional value of trades done on Jan. 9 on its on-line exchange at more than $4.3 billion. The amount marked a 75% increase over December’s daily average of $2.5 billion, which was the record month for the year 2001.

“While ICE already experienced incredible growth in 2001 with a 15 fold increase in number of trades executed on our platform compared to last year, the start of the New Year is proving again that we have a very strong platform that perfectly fits the demands of the current market,” said Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of IntercontinentalExchange. “With the recent addition of many new trading participants and the plans we have in store for the addition of OTC clearing to provide credit amelioration that the market desperately desires, we are looking forward to even stronger growth in the new year.”

Summing up its results for 2001, ICE said by the end of 2001 that the number of participating firms and users on ICE both increased by more than 400%. In addition, the company said that the number of trades executed on ICE grew 15 fold over that same period during 2000.

“ICE had a tremendous year in 2001, emerging as a key player in electronic trading exchanges,” said COO Chuck Vice. “We attribute our strong market position to the stability of our organization combined with our ability to meet the demands of the market via our many-to-many trading platform.”

The platform set a new daily record for natural gas trading of 500 Bcf set on Dec. 27, 2001, breaking the previous daily record set on Dec. 4, 2001 by 18%.

As an open-access, multi-lateral electronic marketplace, IntercontinentalExchange continues to offer increased liquidity and transparency to OTC market participants. Over 400 of the world’s largest commodity trading firms are now ICE participants, the exchange said.

©Copyright 2002 Intelligence Press Inc. Allrights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republishedor redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without priorwritten consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.