Quote from MrN:
Futures Like KC and CL are not designed for small retail punters, they are designed to appeal to producers and processors/refiners. A small retail sized contract would be a purely speculative vehicle with no economic purpose. Not that I am against that, it is just that that feature would make it unlikely to pick up significant volume and open interest.
Quote from bashatrader:
You post doesn't make any sense. If you have a smaller contract, 1/10 for example, then the commercial will buy x10. What is bad with that? it 's the same thing. It also allows for more hedging accuracy. Large contracts are designed so that small speculators lose fast to commercials through margin calls.