Spread contract

Questions and Answers on MiFID II and MiFIR commodity derivatives topics, 05 April 2017, ESMA70-872942901-28

A commodity derivative contract in the legal form of a “spread” or “diff” contract is a contract that is cash-settled and whose value is determined by the difference between two reference commodities which may vary in type, grade, location, time of delivery, or other features. Whilst having multiple commodity values underlying it, the commodity derivative is available on a trading venue as a single tradable financial instrument. A spread contract is different to a spread trading strategy, when two or more commodity derivative contracts may be traded together in order to achieve a certain economic effect. Such a strategy may be executed by a single action in a venue’s trading systems, but it remains composed of separate and legally distinct commodity derivatives which are executed as trades simultaneously.

As a spread contract has no single commodity at a specific place or time as the underlying, it is not possible to link it to a single physical deliverable supply against a contractual obligation to physically settle the trade. It is for this reason all spread contracts are cash-settled and not physically settled.

Therefore, spread contracts should be treated for the application of the ESMA methodology in the same manner as C10 commodity derivatives which do not have a physical underlying, such as weather derivatives. The open interest figure for the commodity derivative itself should be used as the baseline for both the Spot Month limit and the Other Months’ limit. 

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