Notice to Members
Notice No. 245
05/05/2006
New York Mercantile Exchange to Launch Sixteen New Natural Gas Contracts
Please be advised that the New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc., will launch trading in sixteen new natural gas contracts. The contracts will be available on NYMEX ClearPort® Trading and Clearing for trade date Monday, May 8, 2006.

The new products will include two Natural Gas Basis contracts for CenterPoint and Dawn. The basis contracts are monthly contracts and the final settlement is based on the differential between prices reported by Platts Inside FERC's Gas Market Report and the Exchange's Natural Gas Futures Contract.

Also included are seven Natural Gas Index contracts and seven Natural Gas Swing contracts. The locations for the Index and Swing contracts will include CenterPoint, Dawn, ANR Oklahoma, NGPL Midcon, NGPL Texok, Demarc, and Ventura. The swing contracts are daily contracts and final settlement is based on the daily price reference for each location in Platts Gas Daily. The index contracts are monthly contracts and final settlement is based on the monthly average of differentials between the Platts Gas Daily and Platts Inside FERC for each location.

The contract unit for all product types is 2,500 mmBtu and the minimum tick is $0.0025/mmBtu.

Symbols for each of the locations are as follows:

Location
Basis Symbol
Index Symbol
Swing Symbol
 
CenterPoint
PW
II
VX
Dawn
DW
IO
OW
ANR, Oklahoma
IQ
SQ
NGPL, Midcon
IW
PX
NGPL, Texok
OI
OX
Demarc
DI
DT
Ventura
VI
VS


All sixteen contracts will be available for trading on NYMEX ClearPort® Trading or for submission solely for clearing as off-exchange transactions through NYMEX ClearPort® Clearing. Natural Gas Basis and Natural Gas Index contracts will initially be listed for thirty-six (36) consecutive contract months beginning with the June 2006 contract. Natural Gas Swing contracts will initially be listed for May 9, 2006 through June 30, 2006.

All five new contracts are cash settled. There are four calendar month swaps, and one "bullet" swap contract that is a futures look-alike instrument which terminates one business day prior to the underlying RBOB futures contract. These new contracts will be listed for the current year and the next three years, and a new calendar year will be added following the termination of trading in the December contract of the current year.

Fees (per side): Fees are identical to currently listed natural gas basis contracts.
     
NYMEX ClearPort® Clearing Member: $0.54/contract
Non-Member: $0.67/contract
     
NYMEX ClearPort® Trading Liquidity Provider $0.25/contract, paid
Opposite Side: $0.65/contract, all inclusive
     
Cash Settlement Member: $0.54/contract
Non-Member: $0.67/contract
     
Margins: Margins will be announced in a subsequent notice.
     
Position Reporting and Limits: All positions limits and reporting levels will be announced in a subsequent notice.
Should you have any questions or require any further information, please contact exchangeinfo@nymex.com