On November 16 a seminar on the delivery and quality testing issues of SHFE fuel oil contracts was held in Guangzhou. The main purpose of the event is to educate the market users of the details of delivery and quality testing of fuel oil so as to ensure the first round of delivery go well. Fuel oil end users, traders,the customs, commercial examiners, commercial banks, delivery points and FCMs attended the seminar.

"For over two months, the trading of SHFE fuel oil contracts has registered a record of success." said Mr. Chu Juehai, head of SHFE oil futures launching team. " The priority of next phase is the delivery mechanism. We would like to hear the views of the market users so that we could improve our work performance and services to the related industries, and well control the market risks."

Listed for trading on August 25, 2004, SHFE fuel oil futures contracts took off with a good start. So far the trading has been active and smooth, and the prices interact with the prices in international market and domestic spot market. The trading has demonstrated a preliminary influence on prices. For the 53 trading days until November 12, the trading volume for all the contract months has been 49.67 million tons and valued RMB 109.6 billion. Daily average is 937 thousand tons in volume and RMB 2.06 billion.