The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has announced a strategic partnership with S&P Global Energy (Platts) to launch NSE Dated Brent Crude (Platts) futures in its commodity derivatives segment. Trading is scheduled to begin on April 13, 2026.
Subject to approval from market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India, this move will allow Indian refineries and traders to directly hedge against international crude oil benchmarks.
What Are Brent Crude Futures?
At present, crude oil trading in India mainly takes place on Multi Commodity Exchange of India, which is generally based on US oil prices (WTI).
Now, India is introducing Brent crude futures. Since nearly 60–70% of global crude oil trade is linked to Brent prices, this new launch will allow Indian traders to directly trade based on this global benchmark on the NSE.
This marks a major expansion of NSE’s energy segment offerings and is expected to increase competition in the commodity market while also boosting trading volumes.
Key Points About the Launch
The contracts will be launched under the symbol ‘BRCRUDEOIL’.
These contracts will be based on the S&P Global Energy (Platts) Dated Brent Assessment, which is one of the most important benchmarks for global crude oil prices.
In this contract, traders will need to deal in a minimum of 100 barrels of oil at a time.
The contract will be cash settled, which means there will be no physical delivery of oil. Instead, profit or loss will be paid in Indian rupees based on the expiry price.
Although oil is traded internationally in US dollars, the launch of Brent crude futures on NSE will allow investors in India to trade it directly in rupees.
With the help of this platform, Indian government and private oil companies will be able to lock in prices in advance through hedging on NSE. This can help protect them from losses caused by rising international oil prices.
At the same time, this will also provide small investors with another major platform apart from MCX to potentially earn profits from the rise and fall in global oil prices.
