Online Commodity Trading

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and five other banks and energy companies said they will create a Web site for trading precious metals and oil, two of the world’s largest commodity markets. The Atlanta-based Web site, named IntercontinentalExchange, will start operating this year and could be expanded to include other metals and natural gas, the companies said. The partnership, which includes Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and BP Amoco, is the latest to use the Internet to capture a share of the estimated $1.8-trillion worth of commodity contracts traded each year. The other partners are Totalfina Elf, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale.