Nymex Will Increase Size And Clearing Fees Of E-miNY<SUP>sm</SUP> Futures

The New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc., will increase the size of its e-miNYsm crude oil and natural gas futures contracts to 50% from 40% of the underlying standard size contracts with the listing of the December contracts and will increase clearing fees accordingly at that time.

The e-miNY^sm crude oil futures contract will increase in size to 500 barrels from 400 barrels beginning on October 20 for the October 21 trading session, while the e-miNYsm natural gas futures contract will increase to 5,000 million British thermal units (mmBtu), up from 4,000 mmBtu, beginning on October 28 for the October 29 trading session. e-miNY^sm energy futures trade via the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) GLOBEX® electronic trading system.

Clearing fees will increase as follows:

For a daily average volume of up to 200 contracts per month per product, the rate for NYMEX Division members will increase to $0.63 per contract per side from $0.50, and the fee for COMEX Division and CME members will increase to $1.03 from $0.82.

For daily average volume of 201 to 750 contracts, the rate for NYMEX Division members will increase to $0.38 from $0.30; and, for COMEX Division and CME members, the fee will increase to $0.63 from $0.50.

For daily average volume of 750 contracts or more, the fee for NYMEX Division members will increase to $0.15 from $0.12 and the fee for COMEX Division and CME members will increase to $0.25 from $0.20.

Customer fees will increase to $1.43 from $1.14 across the board.

Exchange President J. Robert Collins, Jr., said, "This change will increase the flexibility of the e-miNY^sm energy futures contracts and will open more trading and investment opportunities for market participants."