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Agree a price today for delivery later
A commodity forward is a private agreement to buy or sell a specific quantity of a specific grade, at a specific place and time, for a price agreed now. It is the oldest derivative there is, and it is still the contract of choice for anyone whose problem is not just price but supply. Unlike a cash-settled swap, it ends with goods moving, which makes the grade, the delivery point and the delivery date as negotiated as the price itself.
Open in the app · Commodity · foundational
A commodity forward is a bilateral agreement to buy or sell a set quantity of a commodity at an agreed price on a future date. Unlike a commodity swap, it usually contemplates delivery of the physical goods, so it settles a supply problem and a price problem in one contract.
Price, quantity, grade, delivery point and date are all negotiated between the two parties. No money changes hands at inception — the whole transaction happens at maturity, when the buyer pays the agreed price and takes delivery. The forward price itself is not a forecast: it starts from today’s spot price and adds the cost of holding the commodity until the delivery date.
Forward price is broadly spot plus storage and financing, less any convenience yield from holding the physical. That is why forward curves can sit above spot (contango) or below it (backwardation).
It suits parties that genuinely want the physical commodity — a refiner securing crude, or a food producer locking in wheat — because it combines price certainty with guaranteed supply on terms an exchange-traded future cannot match. A cash-settled swap would fix the price but leave the buyer still hunting for barrels or tonnes.
Contract price, quantity, the grade or quality specification, the delivery point, the delivery date, and physical settlement at maturity. Each of these is priced: a tighter specification or a more convenient delivery point costs the buyer more.
Delivery terms follow standard trade shorthand — FOB, CIF, DAP — and they decide who pays freight and insurance, and at what point risk passes from seller to buyer.
It is a firm obligation, so a buyer must take delivery even if demand has evaporated. Being bilateral and uncleared, it carries counterparty risk for the full term, and its bespoke terms make the position difficult to exit early — there is no liquid market in that exact contract, so unwinding usually means negotiating with the same counterparty.
Unlike an exchange-traded future, a bilateral forward has no daily settlement against a clearing house, so the whole gain or loss accumulates until delivery unless the parties have agreed to post collateral.
The forward fixed both the price and the supply. Note the obligation cuts both ways: had spot fallen to £190, the miller would still have paid £1,050,000, or £100,000 more than the market.
Refiners buy crude forward to keep a plant fed at a known cost, millers and brewers buy grain forward so a year’s recipe costs are set before the season, and mining companies sell metal forward to bank the price behind a shipment already scheduled. The counterparty is typically a producer, a merchant trading house or a bank with a physical commodity arm.
The app adds a twelve-question bank for Commodity Forward, drawn differently every sitting, and a review queue for whatever you miss.
A subscription adds 3 further sections on Commodity Forward — The theory of storage, Roll yield, and why it dominates returns, Delivery, and the options inside it — and 12 more questions to its bank.
Educational content only. Nothing here is financial advice, an offer to trade, or a recommendation to buy or sell any instrument.