Photo courtesy of Norsk Hydro
The London Metal Exchange (LME) has called 2025 was its “strongest year ever” for futures and options volumes, saying its futures and options average daily volume (ADV) in 2025 reached more than 717,300 lots, up 7.9 percent compared with ADV in 2024.
The exchange also says it finished last year strong, with its fourth quarter ADV in the time frame being its “highest on record,” averaging more than 777,000 lots each day. The previous quarterly high was set in the second quarter of 2014, when more than 735,600 lots were traded daily, says the LME.
The LME primary aluminum contract remained its most active in 2025. Last year, it maintained an ADV of more than 268,000 lots, representing a 2.2 percent increase from the 262,390 ADV established in 2024.
“Market participants have increasingly turned to the LME to manage their price risk in this period of geopolitical uncertainty and supply tightness,” says Matthew Chamberlain, CEO of the LME.
In a recap of its 2025 activity, LME says 14 new brands of metal were listed on the exchange. Of those, six were for lead, four were for copper, three were for nickel and one was for cobalt.
At the end of 2025 there were more than 2,220 sustainability disclosures filed with the exchange, which can include descriptions of recycled content. That figure is up from fewer than 1,000 such disclosures at the end of December 2024, according to the LME.
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