Exchange Chairman Vincent Viola said, "This contract will round out the array of risk management services that the Exchange offers to the energy industry. The specifications of our coal futures contract has already become an industry standard for cash and over-the-counter trading and we expect the futures contract to become as powerful a tool to the coal industry as our other energy contracts have become in those industries. Offering this contract for trading in an open outcry forum is evidence of the strong confidence in its potential liquidity held by the Exchange, its members, and the coal industry as a whole."
Contract specifications include:
- Trading Unit: Futures: 1,550 tons of coal.
- Trading Hours: Open Outcry: 10:30AM to 2:30PM
- NYMEX ACCESS®: Monday through Thursday - 4PM to 9AM; Sunday - 4PM to 9AM
- Trading Months Futures: 24 to 26 consecutive months to be listed on a quarterly schedule. As contracts expire, the 26th month will roll forward until it becomes the 23rd month. At that point, new 24th, 25th, and 26th month contracts will be added.
- Price Quotations: U.S. dollars and cents per ton.
- Minimum Price Fluctuation: $0.01 per ton. ($15.50 per contract).
- Maximum Price Fluctuation: $12.00 per ton ($18,600 per contract) for all months. If any contract is traded, bid, or offered at the limit for five minutes, trading is halted for 10 minutes. When trading resumes, expanded limits are in place that allow the price to fluctuate by $24.00 in either direction of the previous day's settlement price. There are no price limits on any month during the last three days of trading in the spot month.
- Last Trading Day Trading terminates on the fourth to last business day of the month before the delivery month.
- Contract Delivery Unit: The seller shall deliver 1,550 tons of coal per contract. A loading tolerance of 60 tons or 2%, whichever is greater, over the total number of contracts delivered is permitted. Delivery Location Delivery shall be made F.O.B. the buyer's barge at the seller's delivery facility on the Ohio River between Mileposts 306 and 317, or on the Big Sandy River, with all duties, entitlements, taxes, fees and other charges imposed prior to delivery paid by the seller. There will be a discount of $0.10 per ton below the final settlement price for any delivery to a terminal on the Big Sandy River.
- Ash Content: Maximum of 13.50% by weight with no analysis tolerance.
- Sulfur Content: Maximum of 1.00%, with analysis tolerance of 0.050% above.
- Moisture Content Maximum of 10.00%, with no analysis tolerance.
- Volatile Matter: Minimum of 30.00%, with no analysis tolerance.
- Hardness/Grindability: Minimum 41 Hardgrove Index with three point analysis tolerance below. Hardness measures how difficult it is to pulverize coal for injection into the boiler flame.
- Size: Three inches topsize, nominal, with a maximum of 55% passing one-quarter-inch-square wire cloth sieve or smaller, to be determined on the basis of the primary cutter of the mechanical sampling system.
- Position Accountability Levels: 5,000 contracts for all months combined, but not to exceed in the last three days of trading in the spot month.
