A guaranteed physical delivery futures contract and method and system for
consolidating same are disclosed. The method includes guaranteeing
physical delivery for future positions of market participants having open
first-nearby time positions of a particular size, making additions to or
subtractions from open first-nearby time positions of market participants
that are less than the particular size and offsetting the additions to
and subtractions from market participants' open first-nearby time
positions with opposite positions in a second-nearby time. The system
includes one or more servers and communications links, the communications
links for receiving position data, including open positions, and the
servers are configured to make additions to or subtractions from open
first-nearby time positions less than a certain size and adjust market
participant second-nearby time positions based on the additions to or
subtractions from open first-nearby time positions. In certain
embodiments, the underlying commodity is crude oil and the particular
size is the size of a cargo shipment, about 600,000 barrels.