Power Outage Halts Trading on ICE Exchange

A power outage at the data center for The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) led to a suspension of all commodities trading on ICE Thursday morning. The power failure in the company's primary data center in Chicago began at 10:30 a.m. ET and lasted for nearly an hour, ICE spokeswoman Kelly Loeffer told Investment News. Over-the-counter-trading markets resumed operations at 1:30 p.m., and the futures markets reopened at 1:50 p.m. ET. The company didn't provide further details about the cause of the outage.

ICE, a leading electronic energy marketplace, consolidated its primary data center operations in Chicago last year from existing data centers in London and Atlanta. ICE's data centers support electronic markets for ICE Futures, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) and ICE's global over-the-counter markets.

ICE is among the many financial exchanges are offering colocation space to trading firms. ICE currently offers a managed colocation program, as well as point-to-point connectivity with points of presence (POPs) in Chicago, New York, London, Singapore and Atlanta. These POPs facilitate connections to both the primary and backup data centers over the ICE global network.

Intercontinental Exchange markets offer access to a range of contracts based on crude oil and refined products, natural gas, power and emissions, as well as agricultural commodities including cocoa, coffee, cotton, ethanol, orange juice, wood pulp and sugar, in addition to currency and index futures and options.