LME Steel HRC Shanghai FAQs

LME Steel HRC Shanghai aims to provide an additional route to access the SHFE Hot-Rolled Coil futures contract to international companies. The SHFE Hot-Rolled Coil futures contract has been one of the most liquid commodities markets in the world for many years and several international firms have expressed their interest in accessing this liquidity for hedging or for expressing their market views.

The LME Steel HRC Shanghai futures contract goes live on Tuesday 27 October 2026.

System implementations details:

Technical go-live date	26 October 2026 (not live – DPL published for next day) ;
Test window for technical go-live	22 September 2026 to 23 October 2026
Conformance required	Optional
Test environment	Member Test B (MTB)
Commercial go-live date	27 October 2026

 

LME Shanghai HRC is a cash-settled futures contract. On the prompt date any open positions in the front contract month will settle against the Final Settlement Price.

The final day of trading (expiry day) for each monthly LME Steel HRC Shanghai contract will be the 15th of the month if that day is a business day in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the UK and the USA. Otherwise, the last trading day in respect of that month shall be the first day prior to the 15th, which is a trading day in the PRC, the UK and the USA. For example, the November 2026 LME Steel HRC Shanghai contract will expire on Friday 13 November 2026 (because 15 November 2026 is a Sunday).

On the expiry day, trading in the front month of the LME Steel HRC Shanghai contract will terminate at 08:00 London time. The deadline for the matching and clearing of all trades in the front month contract is 10:00 London time.

On the expiry day, the Final Settlement Price will be published by CPAL. In summary, CPAL’s procedure is to take the daily settlement of the SHFE HRC contract delivering in the following calendar month and convert it into US dollars. For example, the November 2026 LME Steel HRC Shanghai contract will settle to the daily settlement price (as published by SHFE on 13 November) of the December 2026 SHFE HRC contract. Full details of the CPAL conversion methodology are available on the CPAL website.

This approach, which has been validated by market discussions, reflects the liquidity dynamics of the SHFE HRC contract, where trading volumes and open interest roll from the front active month to the second active month approximately one month before contract expiry.

The LME has adopted its standard naming convention of assigning contract months to the LME Steel HRC Shanghai contracts based on the month on which that contract settles on the LME.

As set out above, this means that market users need to bear in mind the relevant month correspondences between LME and SHFE:

LME month	Corresponding SHFE month
November	December
December	January
January	February
February	March
March	April
April	May
May	June
June	July
July	August
August	September
September	October
October	November

On the last trading day CPAL uses the CNY denominated daily SHFE Hot-Rolled Coil Futures Contract Settlement Price published by SHFE of the futures contract expiring in the next calendar month. For the avoidance of any doubt:

• In January CPAL will publish the February CPAL Steel HRC Shanghai (SHFE) Monthly USD Settlement Price using the SHFE HRC daily settlement price for the futures expiring in February.
• In February, CPAL will publish the March CPAL Steel HRC Shanghai (SHFE) Monthly USD Settlement Price using the SHFE HRC daily settlement price for the futures expiring in March and so on.

On the Pricing Date CPAL will take the spot USD/CNY FX rate published once per business day at 9:15 Beijing time by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (“CFETS”) under the authorisation of the People’s Bank of China.

This outline of CPAL’s methodology is indicative-only and the up-to-date full methodology is published from time to time by CPAL.

To calculate the Final Settlement Price, CPAL will use the spot USD/CNY FX rate published once per business day at 9:15 Beijing time by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (“CFETS”) on the expiry day.

The cash posting will happen on the first day that is both a UK and US business day (called a Settlement Business Day in the LME Rulebook) after the last trading day.

LME Steel HRC Shanghai trades and settles in US dollars.

The LME’s methodology for the determination of the Daily Settlement Prices for cash-settled futures is available on LME.com.

LME Steel HRC Shanghai futures (per leg per side per lot)	Fees (USD)
Contract type	Category	Trading	Clearing	Total
Exchange	Non-Ring	0.20	0.10	0.30
	Give-up	0.09	0.09	0.18
Client	All	0.20	0.10	0.30
Cash-settlement fee		-	-	0.06
Cleared unallocated account trades		-	-	-
Cancellations of all cleared trades		-		-

Margin parameter files are used by SPAN to calculate the initial margin. Parameters will be calculated daily, but usually updated monthly and published on LME.com. 

Contract	Exchange Position Limit in the Expiry Month* (Lots)	Exchange Position Limit in the Other Months** (Lots)
LME Steel HRC Shanghai	4,500	60,000

*For the LME Steel HRC Shanghai Contract, compliance with the Exchange Position Limit in the “Expiry Month” must be determined on the basis of the number of Lots of the LME Contract which expire in the current calendar month.

** For the LME Steel HRC Shanghai Contract, compliance with the Exchange Position Limit in the “Other Months” must be determined on the basis of the number of Lots of the LME Contract in expiries beyond the “Expiry Month”.

26 250 Policy Relating to Position Management Arrangements Update to Exchange Position Limits (PDF)

Daily Price Limits for the LME Steel HRC Shanghai on LMEselect and LMEsmart will be 7%.

26 249 Updates to the Daily Price Limit Multiple Day Framework and Disruption Event Framework (PDF)

Yes, the Ferrous Liquidity Provider HS001 programme is designed to support the growth of electronic liquidity in the LME Steel HRC Shanghai futures.

The main requirement is for liquidity providers to quote $1.50 wide on the first active month during SHFE trading hours. The full details of the Ferrous Liquidity Provider HS001 programme are available upon request.

Start date	End date	LME outrights to be quoted	Corresponding SHFE outrights for reference
27/10/2026	14/12/2026	A1: Dec-26 A2: Apr-27	A1: Jan-27 A2: May-27
15/12/2026	14/04/2027	A1: Apr-27 A2: Sep-27	A1: May-27 A2: Oct-27
15/04/2027	14/09/2027	A1: Sep-27 A2: Dec-27	A1: Oct-27 A2: Jan-28
15/09/2027	14/12/2027	A1: Dec-27 A2: Apr-28	A1: Jan-28 A2: May-28
15/12/2027	31/12/2027	A1: Apr-28 A2: Sep-28	A1: May-28 A2: Oct-28

The LME contract settles basis the SHFE HRC futures contract delivering in the following calendar month converted into US dollars by CPAL. The LME has adopted its standard naming convention of assigning contract months to the LME Steel HRC Shanghai contracts based on the month on which that contract settles on the LME.

For clarity, the LME June contract expiring on 15 June settles against the July CPAL Steel HRC Shanghai (SHFE) price that is calculated using the SHFE HRC July futures daily settlement price.

SHFE Session	Beijing (UTC+8)	UK Summer (BST)	UK Winter (GMT)	US East Summer (EDT)	US East Winter (EST)
Day Session 1	09:00-10:15	02:00-03:15	01:00-02:15	21:00-22:15 (prev day)	20:00-21:15 (prev day)
Day Session 2	10:30-11:30	03:30-04:30	02:30-03:30	22:30-23:30 (prev day)	21:30-22:30 (prev day)
Day Session 3	13:30-15:00	06:30-08:00	05:30-07:00	01:30-03:00	00:30-02:00
Night Session	21:00-23:00	14:00-16:00	13:00-15:00	09:00-11:00	08:00-10:00

Real time pricing including all tradeable months out to contract expiry is available via LME licensed data distributors.

HSTA Comdty

Description	RIC
Front month - non-electronic	MHSSc1
Front month - Electronic	MHSSc1=LX
Front month - Composite	CMHSSc1
Market Open Interest	MHSS-MOI-TOT
Traded Volume	MHSS-MOI-TOT