Since the inception of clearing services for off-Exchange transactions on May 31, 2002, the equivalent of 25.7 million megawatt hours of electricity, 7.33 quadrillion British thermal units (Btus) of natural gas, and 3 million barrels of crude oil have been cleared through the Exchange clearinghouse, with a notional value of approximately $34.5 billion. More than 200 companies are registered to clear trades from a product slate of 60 energy contracts.
Open interest as of the close of business yesterday was 7.5 million megawatt hours of electricity, 1.88 quadrillion Btus of natural gas, and 1.8 million barrels of crude oil.
Exchange President J. Robert Collins, Jr., said, "From the start, our priority has been to satisfy the most important need of our energy merchant class of customers to mitigate counterparty credit exposure. Clearing off-exchange products was an innovative step, which not only enabled us to establish a much closer relationship with our customer base, but also led to the introduction of a suite of services under the umbrella of the NYMEX ClearPortsm platform, including off-exchange trade confirmations and virtually 24-hour trading in a wide range of non-traditional futures contracts."
