DUBAI, UAE, June 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

DME (Dubai Mercantile Exchange) the Middle East's leading energy futures exchange and home to the emerging benchmark for crude oil pricing for the East of Suez markets, has today announced the appointment of former BNP Paribas Head of Marketing for Commodity Futures APAC, Christopher Fix, as Chief Executive Officer.

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Christopher joins the Exchange after more than 20 years in the international commodity markets, having worked with BNP Paribas in New York, Paris and Asia since 1992. He was most recently Head of Marketing for Commodity Futures APAC, based in Singapore, a position he held for three years. During this time Christopher's desk increased its customer base in Asia four-fold, an achievement which led to the desk being named Energy Risk's Energy Broker of the Year, Asia in 2011.

DME's Chairman Ahmad Sharaf, said:

"I am delighted to announce today that the Board of Directors of DME has appointed Christopher Fix, an exceptional commodities industry expert, as Chief Executive Officer to lead the Exchange forward in its drive to increase volumes and achieve true benchmark status for our flagship DME Oman contract.

"When we restructured the DME in February of this year, we signaled our intention to place more emphasis on the increasingly important Asian market. The appointment of Christopher Fix as the new DME CEO, with the Asian market knowledge and experience he brings, is a real tangible expression of that commitment."

A consummate linguist, US-born Christopher is fluent in French, speaks excellent Mandarin and conversational Russian. He is a graduate of SUNY- Binghamton and received a Chinese language diploma from Beijing Teachers College in China. Christopher will relocate to Dubai with his family and join DME on August 26.

"I am honoured the DME Board has placed its confidence in me to lead the Exchange forward at this crucial time," said Christopher. "I am very excited to be joining at a time when the DME has experienced record volumes in four out of the five months since the beginning of the year, new clients and a revised shareholder structuring. The DME Oman contract is the emerging benchmark for East of Suez crude oil pricing, and I look forward to working with the staff, the Board, our shareholders, and our strategic partners to build on the DME's success."

These appointments are a continuation of the strategy put in place with the shareholder restructuring in February which has seen DME take a significant leap forward on the road to achieving the Exchange's goal of becoming the established benchmark for pricing of sour crude oil destined for the East of Suez markets.

Since the beginning of 2012, DME has welcomed new members and shown a significant increase in volumes. Q1 2012 volumes were 57% ahead of Q1 2011 and April saw a raft of impressive figures being recorded by the Exchange.

Figures for April, announced at the beginning of May, were as follows:

• New record monthly trading volume: 123,162 contracts (a 9% increase over the previous month's record volume and 15% more than the record set in February 2012)
• Daily trading volume record of 12,648 contracts (a 24.7% increase on the previous record single day which was set on February 15)
• Average daily volume for the month: 6,158 contracts (a 14.5% increase on the previous record ADV of 5,378 contracts)

Note to editors:

On 4 April 2012, the DME announced that average daily volume for the three months to 31 March 2012 was 57% per cent ahead of the same period in 2011, showing the progress made by the exchange over the previous year and the powerful start to 2012 trading. It also announced that the exchange had traded more than three billion barrels of crude oil, confirming DME Oman's status as the largest physically delivered crude oil futures contract in the world.

About the DME

The Dubai Mercantile Exchange Limited (DME) is the premier international energy futures and commodities exchange in the Middle East, providing a financially secure, well-regulated and transparent trading environment. The DME is majority owned by core shareholders CME Group, the Oman Investment Fund (OIF) and Dubai Holding. Global financial institutions and energy trading firms including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Shell, Vitol and Concord Energy also have equity stakes in the DME.

The exchange has developed and trades the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract along with related swops contracts, addressing the growing market need for price discovery of sour crude oil destined for East of Suez markets, while simultaneously bridging the time-zone gap between Europe and Asia.  Launched in June 2007, DME Oman is the largest physically delivered crude oil futures contract in the world.

The DME is a fully electronic exchange, and its contracts are listed on the CME Globex® platform, the world's leading electronic trading platform, providing access to the broadest array of futures and options products available on any exchange. The DME is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and all trades executed on the exchange are cleared through and guaranteed by NYMEX (a member of CME Group), which is regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and is a  Recognized Body by the DFSA.

For the latest trading volumes on the DME, please visit: http://www.dubaimerc.com  

Historical DME trading data can be found at: http://www.dubaimerc.com/historical.aspx  

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SOURCE DME