GENERAL OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES

All Clearing Members and Qualified Floor Traders that carried an options position as of the close of business day prior to the expiration day, or engaged in trading activity on Expiration Day in the expiring options contract will be required to have a knowledgeable, duly authorized representative present at their normal work station promptly at 2:00 p.m. until released by the Exchange staff as specified below. All adjustments and/or corrections, must be accompanied by relevant supporting documentation prior to being incorporated into expiration processing, in essence making the expiration processing an extension of the afternoon trade resolution procedures. All input to the NYMEX Clearing Department will conclude no later than 30 minutes after floor representatives are released.

Exchange Clearing (299-2110), Floor Trade Processing (299-2068 and 299-2169) personnel, as well as a representative of the Floor Committee will be available to assist with the processing of notices of Exercise and Abandonment, position transfers, trade corrections and other questions or problems you may have.

CLEARING DEPARTMENT OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES

The Option Expiration process is a screen based process for which all information is provided on the screens on C21 terminals. No Option Expiration Reports will be provided. The following screens will assist you through the Option Expiration process:

MEMBER TRADE INQUIRY
Contains real-time top day trade information, trade information for the previous 4 business days and trade=s adjusted for the previous 4 business days by adjustment date.

OPTION EXPIRATION INQUIRY
Contains position, trade, exercise and do not exercise submission information for each option series.

SINGLE POSITION MAINTENANCE
Contains a real-time snapshot for each option series from the start of day position to the projected end of day position.

REVIEW ACCEPT REJECT TRANSFERS
Contains all trade and position transfers “TO” your firm and the status of each transfer.

REVIEW SUBMITTED TRANSFERS
Contains all trade and position transfer “FROM” your firm and the status of each transfer.

EXERCISE NOTICE SUBMISSION
Contains your available long position and an input field to enter the number of long positions you wish to exercise.

DO NOT EXERCISE SUBMISSION
Contains your available long position and an input field to enter the number of long positions you wish to abandon.

POSITION CHANGE SUBMISSION
PCS may be submitted either by manual input or by electronic transmission. Any PCS input on a Clearing 21 terminal will be the input processed by the system. This input may be made at any time prior to 5:15 p.m. Any PCS input via transmission for that contract series will be disregarded.

ALL POSITIONS ARE DEEMED FINAL
Upon completion of all PCS input, all positions will be deemed final.

EXERCISE/ASSIGNMENT INFORMATION
Will be available to you on the Single Position Maintenance window by contract series or the Assignment List window which contains all your Assignments on one window. You will be notified of its availability by C21 E-Mail and by the NYMEX Information System. This should occur within 1 hour of the last PCS input.

All Clearing Members are required to have an authorized representative(s) at their C21 workstations in preparation for any communication during the expiration process.

NYMEX INFORMATION SYSTEM
Clearing Members should call the NYMEX Information System at 212-299-2309, Option 2 for messages advising Members of the event status.

E-MAIL
Clearing Members should read their C21 E-Mail messages immediately to be aware of event status.

The standard event NYMEX Information System and/or E-Mail messages and the sequence in which they will be announced are:


STANDARD EVENT MESSAGES / APPROXIMATE TIME OF MESSAGE AVAILABILITY / USUAL EVENT TIME

NYMEX
INFORMATION
SYSTEM (F)
E-MAIL (E)
BOTH (B)

Announce Out-of-the 4:45PM 4:45PM F
Money Exercise and In-the-Money
Do Not Exercise Submissions

Announce Final Input to C21 5:00PM 5:15PM E
Cutoff Time

All positions are deemed final 5:30PM 5:30PM F

Announce Exercise/Assignment 6:00PM 6:00PM B
Information Available on the Single
Position Maintenance Windows

Announce Expected Clearing Process 7:00PM 9:30PM F
Completion Time

The times appearing in the Usual Event Time column are based on normal operational conditions and could vary.