Record oil futures trading volumes in February

* ICE and CME both see record trading volumes in February

LONDON, March 2 (Reuters) - Traded volumes on the world's two biggest oil futures markets reached record levels in February, boosted by growth of close to 40 percent in futures and options trade on benchmark Brent and WTI contracts.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) (ICE.N) said the average daily trading volume for its futures markets rose 27 percent from the same month a year before to a record 1.74 million contracts. The total futures volume for the month was a record 33 million contracts.

Volume in energy futures traded on markets run by the CME Group CME.N, including the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), averaged 2.2 million contracts a day, up 26 percent from February 2010, CME said.

The driving force behind this strong growth was the trade in futures on the NYMEX light, sweet crude oil contract CLc1 known as West Texas Intermediate or WTI, which rose 39 percent to an average daily volume of 935,000 contracts.

The options contract rose 35 percent for the month and set its third daily volume record of the year with 325,000 contracts on Feb. 23 surpassing the previous record of 294,000 contracts set at the end of January.

ICE Brent crude LCOc1 futures, considered a rival benchmark to WTI, traded on average a record 576,681 contracts a day in February. The daily traded volume of Brent futures and options contracts combined rose 37.6 percent to 584,091.

Brent crude futures are listed on ICE Futures Europe, which posted a 39 percent jump in average daily volume from a year earlier to 1.24 million contracts, and set a new daily volume record of 1.70 million contracts on Feb. 24.

Unrest in the Middle East and North Africa sent Brent prices surging as high as $116 dollars a barrel earlier this week and reinforced its premium over WTI CL-LCO1=R. Europe is seen as more vulnerable to supply disruptions from Libya, traders say.

ICE has benefited from the attraction of Brent as an alternative global benchmark to WTI. Some analysts have suggested London will overtake New York as the biggest centre of crude and oil product futures trade this year. [ID:nN28184087] (Reporting by Nia Williams; editing by Christopher Johnson)