LONDON –  IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE) said Monday that open interest in its Brent crude futures contract hit a record high last week, indicating that the exchange looks set to continue to grow its market share this year as Brent gains increasing recognition as a global benchmark.

"The benchmark ICE Brent Crude futures contract reached a new record open interest level of 1,001,286 contracts on 26 January, 2012," ICE said in a press statement.

Open Interest indicates the number of futures contracts that have yet to be settled in a given product. A large amount of open interest indicates more activity and liquidity in a contract.

The rise in open interest is the latest salvo in a long-standing battle between CME Group Inc. (CME) and ICE for dominance of the oil markets.

Brent crude and CME's West Texas Intermediate contract, or WTI, have traditionally traded within just a few dollars of each other, with WTI regarded as the most important oil benchmark off which much of the world's oil was priced. Volume and open interest in WTI have also historically been much greater for this reason.

However, a supply bottleneck in the Central U.S. last year depressed the price of WTI, causing the contract to trade at a discount to Brent of as much as $26 a barrel.

As a result, many oil market watchers have come to view Brent as a more accurate gauge of global oil supply and demand and volume and open interest in Brent have increased.

"There's been a trend really that open interest in Brent has increased for the last few years," said Olivier Jakob, managing director of Swiss consultancy Petromatrix, adding that Brent's reputation as a benchmark has gained a lot.

Earlier this year, Brent was given a major boost when two of the world's most widely followed commodities indexes shifted their weighting to increase their exposure to Brent at the expense of WTI.

CME was not immediately available to comment.

However, Petromatix's Jakob also said that open interest and volumes in WTI remained large, as the options market continues to do the majority of its business via the WTI contract. Furthermore, plans to reverse the Seaway pipeline in the U.S. later this year should help to alleviated some of the transportation problems WTI faces, potentially allowing it to regain some of its lost reputation, he said.

Copyright © 2012 Dow Jones Newswires