The IPE recently introduced further enhancements to its Natural Gas futures contract:
Natural Gas Weighted Average
The Natural Gas Weighted Average (NGWave) was introduced on 14 January 2002. It represents a weighted average price of trades executed for each contract each business day. It is calculated real-time using all trades executed on ETS II. The final daily NGWave is published after close of business on the IPE website.
Exchange of futures for Swaps Exchange of futures for Swaps facility is now available for the IPE's Natural Gas futures contract and compliments the existing EFPs facility. Both these mechanisms enable market participants to register OTC transactions on the Exchange, thus removing counterparty risk, which exists on OTC trades. Bilaterally executed physical, paper, and swap trades can now be replaced with equivalent IPE Futures contracts in a single contingent transaction. The London Clearing House (LCH) thus becomes the central counterparty to the trades and financially guarantees each trade through to physical delivery.
Isabella Kurek-Smith, Head of Utility Markets, said, "the enhancements to our Natural Gas futures contract will provide vital additional trading benefits to our Members and participants, particularly in the aftermath of the Enron collapse. These changes to the contract are the first of a series of enhancements planned over the next few months including the transition of the contract onto IntercontinentalExchange Inc's state of the art electronic platform".
