GME: Gulf Mercantile Exchange Strategic Partnership

Company Profile

Formerly known as DME (Dubai Mercantile Exchange), GME (Gulf Mercantile Exchange) has a distinguished history of providing robust and reliable commodity trading solutions. DME was founded with the vision of creating Internationally accessible derivatives markets for Middle East commodities.

Launched in June 2007 as a joint venture between Dubai Holding, Oman Investment Authority, and CME Group, DME aimed to bring fair and transparent price discovery and efficient risk management to the East of Suez. The Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract (DME Oman) became its flagship contract, providing the most transparent crude oil benchmark for the region and the largest physically delivered crude contract in the world. The exchange has delivered over 3 Billion Barrels through the exchange mechanism with 21 Billion Barrels contracts traded.

On inception of the DME Oman Crude contract the Oman National Oil Company (Ministry of Oil and Gas in 2007) adopted the DME price discovery mechanism as the basis for pricing all its Oil exports to Asia (East of Suez).

This national level recognition of DME price transparency was followed by Dubai Department of Petroleum Affairs (2009), Saudi Aramco (2018), Bahrain Petroleum Company (2018), and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (2020) all committing to use the benchmark in their pricing formula with their Asia customers.

In 2024, The Saudi Tadawul Group (STG) acquired a third strategic stake in DME. This acquisition marked a significant milestone in the exchange’s evolution, prompting its rebranding to the Gulf Mercantile Exchange (GME) and recognition of its Middle East markets expertise to drive a 10 year plan to build commodity markets in the Kingdom of Saudi Araia and across the GCC.

GME is strategically located within the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), a financial free zone dedicated to promoting financial services within the UAE. The exchange is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority.

In partnership with CME Group shareholder, GME products are listed on the CME Globex matching engine and cleared via CME Clearing. CME is regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and is recognized by the DFSA.

GME Objectives

VISION

To establish GME as the premier and most transparent pricing venue for commodities within the GCC, setting the standard for excellence and reliability in the region.

MISSION

To create regional derivative commodity markets providing international market participants with direct access to innovative, efficient and secure risk management tools.