• Launch Date. For the trade date of Monday, March 22, 2004, (which commences on the NYMEX ClearPort(sm) Clearing system at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 21, 2004), four (4) cash settled European-exercise “look-alike” options will be launched and will be listed only for clearing on the Exchange.
  
• Listing through NYMEX ClearPort(sm) Clearing. These new option contracts are in essence cash-settled “look-alike” versions of the corresponding floor-traded option contract. Transactions executed off-exchange in these new products will be submitted for clearing through the NYMEX ClearPort(sm) Clearing system.
  
• New Option Contracts and New Commodity Symbols. The four new clearing-only option contracts are listed immediately below along with their two-letter commodity symbol:
  
  1. 1. (LC) WTI Crude Oil Look-Alike Option
     
  2. (LB) New York Harbor Heating Oil Look-Alike Options
     
  3. (LG) New York Harbor Unleaded Gasoline Look-Alike Options
     
  4. (LN) Natural Gas Look-Alike Options

I. Settlement for All Strike Prices in these Option Contracts

As a note, consistent with Exchange practice for certain other listed option contracts, any and all strike prices in these four new option contacts for these four European-style commodity options will be assigned a settlement price by the Exchange. This practice will be the case even if there is no open interest in a particular strike price that is listed for that option contract. One benefit to Clearing Members from this practice is that these settlement prices will be used by the Exchange in deriving a delta value for each of these new contracts, which in turn will be used by the Exchange Risk Management system in working with limits set by the Clearing Member for its customer to determine the “RAV” dollar credit risk filter level to be maintained for that option contract.

II. Pre-launch Display of Settlement Prices

As a prelude leading up to the launch, certain prices for all the four European-style Option contracts will be generated and displayed in the usual forums as “settlement prices” two days in advance of the actual launch for the trade date of March 22, 2004. Therefore, please be advised to disregard settlement price information for these contracts on:

1. 1. Thursday, March 18, 2004 and
   
2. 2. Friday, March 19, 2004.