The battle between the world's top two energy exchanges to win a greater slice of the volatile oil futures market - which will see these futures traded in Dublin today for the first time - has erupted into a price war.

The London-based International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) has announced it is to waive fees for self-employed energy traders who trade on the IPE floor.

The IPE price cut is in response to the fee holidays offered by its bigger rival, the New York Mercantile Exchange, which is trying to entice IPE's floor traders to its new open-outcry exchange in Dublin. The floor, based at the FINEX exchange in the IFSC, opens today with the launch of its own Brent crude oil contract.

Brent crude, the second-most-traded crude contract behind Nymex's West Texas Intermediate futures, is the largest futures contract traded on the IPE.

This is the first time Nymex has opened a new trading floor outside its New York base and follows the IPE's decision to reduce its pit trading operations by four hours and shift more of its volume on to electronic screens.

About 30 per cent of Brent volumes are traded between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Nymex will waive all transaction fees for three months and is providing traders with up to $4,000 (€3,125) a month in relocation costs to trade on its new exchange in Dublin.

The IPE has said trading on its electronic platform will be free until 2 p.m. (London time), which will be the new starting time of its open outcry operations, but only until the end of December.

The moves are reminiscent of a price battle in February, when Eurex, the futures and options exchange owned by the German and Swiss stock exchanges, launched a US exchange to take a slice of the US Treasuries futures market from the Chicago Board of Trade.