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On June 22, 2026, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC” or the “Commission”) issued a request for comment (“RFC”) seeking public input, supported by data, on two distinct but related developments in energy derivatives markets: (i) the extension of standard futures contracts to 24/7 trading, and (ii) the potential listing of perpetual contracts that reference physically delivered or storable energy commodities.1 The Commission intends to use the comments to evaluate how each development would affect price reliability and integrity, market oversight, clearing and settlement, customer protection, and the underlying physical energy markets.2 The RFC was published in the Federal Register on June 25, 2026, and comments must be received on or before July 27, 2026. Energy market 24/7 trading and perpetual contracts reflect significant market innovations with potential material implications for the energy commodity markets and related participants. Given the short comment window, energy producers, refiners, traders, end-users, and other market participants should move quickly to evaluate whether and how to weigh in.
24/7 Trading and Perpetual Energy Contracts: What the CFTC is Asking About
The first set of CFTC questions concerns extending standard futures contracts, including all energy futures, to a continuous, 24/7 schedule. The RFC asks, among other things, whether prices formed during overnight, weekend, and holiday periods are sufficiently liquid and reliable to resist manipulation, particularly where the underlying physical market is assessed only during defined windows.3 It also asks about the impact of weekend price formation on leveraged market participants and whether the prices established during extended trading hours would trigger contractual provisions within over-the-counter derivatives markets in a way that could create “unintended economic outcomes, disputes, liquidity demands, or risk transfers[.]”4 Ultimately, the Commission’s questions about 24/7 trading maintain a focus on its Core Principle 3, which requires a designated contract market (“DCM”) to list only contracts that are not readily susceptible to manipulation, and Core Principle 4, which requires a DCM to monitor trading and maintain the capacity to prevent manipulation and price distortion.5
The second set of questions concerns perpetual contracts, which have “no fixed expiration and rely on a periodic funding rate mechanism that is designed to maintain relative price parity with the underlying asset’s spot price, when such contracts reference physically delivered or storable energy commodities, such as crude oil.”6 This builds on the Commission’s May 29, 2026 order permitting a DCM to list as a futures contract a perpetual contract referencing the spot price of bitcoin, and the contemporaneous policy statement which expressly cautioned that perpetual contracts referencing other asset classes, “including, among others, agricultural and energy products,” would be “evaluated on their own terms, with each asset class raising distinct considerations meriting independent analysis.”7 Among other things, the RFC asks what distortions could arise from holding a perpetual contract for an energy product for long periods and whether pricing of the products would be manipulation-resistant during periods of reduced trading.8 The RFC also asks about NYMEX West Texas Intermediate crude oil in particular, and how a perpetual contract referencing it, or another commodity subject to federal speculative position limits, would be integrated into that limits regime.9 Like the Commission’s inquiry into 24/7 trading, its questions about perpetual contracts for energy products are anchored in Core Principles 3 and 4, asking what is required so that a perpetual contract’s reference price remains reliable and not readily susceptible to manipulation at every funding interval.10
Why it Matters for Energy Markets
“Commercial participants such as producers, refiners, and end-users rely on standard futures contracts to hedge cash-market exposure,” and many of their supply, procurement, transportation, and financing contracts price based off those futures through “averaging mechanisms, settlement formulas, index references, escalation clauses, or other pricing provisions[.]”11 The RFC ultimately asks whether prices formed overnight, on weekends, and during holidays, when the cash market is not trading, would be reliable for those purposes. Because those off-hours prices may feed into large supply, procurement, and financing contracts and could trigger contractual provisions that could create unintended economic outcomes or risk transfers, energy market participants should weigh the potential effects of these proposed changes on their own business when considering whether to comment.
A fundamental conceptual point underpinning the RFC (and which commenters may wish to address in their comments) is whether and how 24/7 trading and perpetual models that may work well for blockchain, crypto and financial commodities can work for commodities that move through storage tanks, pipelines and delivery hubs without leading to a disconnect between physical delivery obligations that make energy futures useful as hedging and price-formation tools for commercial participants who actually move the commodity.
Key Takeaways
- The comment period is short. Comments are due on July 27, 2026, following publication of the RFC in the Federal Register on June 25, 2026. Participants who wish to respond have limited time to craft submissions and assemble supporting data.
- The RFC is broad in scope and affects nearly every energy-market participant. The 67 questions span reference-price reliability, liquidity, speculative position limits, and customer protection. Few market participants will be unaffected by one or more of these issues.
- The CFTC requests that commenters submit data. The Commission states that commenters are “encouraged to support their responses with data, empirical analysis, transaction-or market-level statistics, and supporting documents” rather than conclusory assertions or objections. This guidance should inform how energy market participants craft any response to the RFC.12
Footnotes
1. Press Release, Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n, CFTC Seeks Public Comment on the Extension of Standard Futures Contracts to 24/7 Trading and on Perpetual Contracts Referencing Physically Delivered or Storable Energy Commodities (June 22, 2026).
2. Request for Comment on the Extension of Standard Futures Contracts to 24/7 Trading and on Perpetual Contracts Referencing Physically Delivered or Storable Energy Commodities, 91 Fed. Reg. 38,334 (June 25, 2026).
3. Id. at 38,335.
4. Id. at 38,336.
5. Id. at 38,335 (citing 7 U.S.C. § 7(d)(3) and 17 C.F.R. part 38, App’x C).
6. Id.
7. Id.
8. Id. at 38,338.
9. Id. at 38,339.
10. See id. at 38,338–39 (discussing Core Principles 3 and 4).
11. Id. at 38,337; id. at 38,336.
12. Id. at 38,335.
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