An additional month will be listed each month on a rolling basis so there will always be 12 months listed.
The corresponding months of gasoline options contracts will be listed for trading on December 9.
The new months will reference New Jersey standards, using methyl tertiary butyl ether, as with the contracts added earlier this year.
The Exchange halted listing additional months of gasoline futures trading in December 2002 due to changes that will create inconsistent policies regarding gasoline additives between states in the New York harbor area, where the contract is delivered. New York State and Connecticut are scheduled to ban MTBE beginning in January 2004. New Jersey has not adopted a similar ban and state officials have indicated to the Exchange that the state has no plans to change its standards at this time. The Exchange listed the January through April 2004 contracts in May and last month added the contracts through September 2004, with October 2004 being listed earlier this week.
Exchange President J. Robert Collins, Jr., said, "The Exchange continues to expend a great deal of time, energy, and resources to communicate to federal and state officials its concern over the fragmentation of the gasoline market that will occur over the inconsistencies in state policies for this region. We will continue to work closely with industry participants to offer risk management tools that serve the broadest spectrum of the market place possible."
