CME Group, the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the launch of trading and clearing services for four new five-decimal place natural gas liquids average price options contracts. Trading will be available on the New York trading floor and clearing services will be available through CME ClearPort(R), a set of flexible clearing services open to over-the-counter (OTC) market participants to substantially mitigate counterparty risk and provide neutral settlement prices across asset classes. Trading and clearing are scheduled to begin on October 11 for trade date October 12. These contracts will be listed by and subject to the rules and regulations of NYMEX.
The average price options contracts and commodity codes will be:
- Mont Belvieu LDH propane five decimals (OPIS) (4H)
- Mont Belvieu natural gasoline five decimals (OPIS) (4I)
- Mont Belvieu ethane five decimals (OPIS) (4J)
- Mont Belvieu normal butane five decimals (OPIS) (4K)
Expanding our suite of natural gas liquids products based on OPIS pricing will provide additional hedging opportunities for this marketplace. These contracts will trade in the one-thousandth of a cent per gallon as opposed to the standard one-hundredth of a cent per gallon.
The contracts will be listed for 36 consecutive months with October 2009 the first listed month. The contracts will be 42,000 gallons in size and have a minimum price fluctuation of $0.00001 per gallon. There will be 20 strike prices in increments of $0.0001 per gallon above and below the at-the-money strike prices, for a total of 41 strike prices.
For more information please visit www.cmegroup.com/clearport.