A new exchange-traded fund offering exposure to commodity-producing equities launched on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, Sept. 21.

The Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Global Commodity Equity Index Fund (NYSEArca: CRBQ) tracks a diversified global index holding 145 companies that produce energy, agricultural, raw metals and precious metals.

The fund, sponsored by ALPS, is designed as an alternative to traditional futures-based commodity ETFs, such as the popular PowerShares DB Commodity ETF (NYSEArca: DBC). Those funds have come under intense scrutiny from regulators who believe index investors are driving up the price of commodities. Because CRBQ invests in companies that produce commodities, and not in actual commodity futures, it should avoid those concerns.

CRBQ is not the first commodity-producing equity ETF. Van Eck offers the Market Vectors – Hard Assets Producers ETF (NYSEArca: HAP), and iShares offers the iShares North American Natural Resources Sector ETF (NYSEArca: IGE).

Of the two, HAP is the closer competitor. They differ slightly  in their weighting methodology: CRBQ weights its sector-level exposures within the commodity space based on the “production value” of each commodity, while HAP uses "consumption-based" weightings. In the end, however, the two fund have significant overlap, with CRBQ slightly more concentrated in the energy space than HAP.

By contrast, IGE uses a more traditional market-cap weighting methodology and arrives at a very different result. IGE is dominated by exposure to mega-cap energy names like Exxon-Mobil; by comparison, both HAP and CRBQ offer significantly more diversified exposure to agricultural companies and other raw materials.

Monsanto, for instance, is the largest holding in both HAP (6.2 percent) and CRBQ (7.3 percent), while Chevron leads IGE (7.6 percent).

As of June 30, CRBQ was 32 percent exposed to the U.S. market, compared with 43 percent for HAP and nearly all of IGE.

CRBQ charges 0.65 percent in annual expenses, compared with 0.75 percent for HAP and 0.48 percent for IGE.

The prospectus for CRBQ is available here.