LME non-ferrous trading climbs 16 percent in H1 2011

•Non-ferrous trading up 16 per cent with 68.6 million lots traded in H1 2011 .

•Total value of non-ferrous contracts traded equivalent to $7.8 trillion .

•LME contracts account for 82 per cent of non-ferrous tonnes traded on exchanges globally.

Trading at the London Metal Exchange (LME) surged over the first half of 2011, with volumes up 16 per cent on average across all non-ferrous contracts compared with the corresponding period in 2010. In 2011 68.6 million lots traded (59.3 million), equivalent to 1.7 billion tonnes of metal (1.5 billion) and $7.8 trillion ($5.5 trillion).

Copper climbed 9 per cent in the first half of 2011. Volumes for lead and tin experienced even greater growth of over 40 per cent. Aluminium and zinc volumes were also up 17 per cent and 15 per cent respectively, while nickel saw an increase of 6 per cent over the corresponding period. The LME’s Head of Business Development, Chris Evans, commented: “With a $7.8 trillion notional market turnover, and sustained growth in all our major contracts, the LME maintains its position as the world’s leading non-ferrous metals exchange. We also look forward to introducing new initiatives later this year, such as proximity hosting, which will provide low-latency and cost-effective access to our electronic trading platform, LMEselect.”

LME non-ferrous contracts now account for an average of 82 percent of non-ferrous metals traded on exchanges globally (tonnes), an increase of 13 percentage points. Aluminium alone now has 98 percent of the global market share in terms of tonnage and copper accounts for 73 percent, up 11 percentage points.