CME Group Announces the Launch of New Natural Gas Basis Options Contracts

CHICAGO, July 20  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CME Group, the world's largest and most diverse derivatives exchange, today announced the launch of trading and clearing services for 11 new financially settled natural gas basis options contracts. Trading will be available on the New York trading floor and clearing services will be available through CME ClearPort , a set of flexible clearing services open to over the counter (OTC) market participants to significantly mitigate counterparty risk and provide capital efficiencies across asset classes, beginning on August 2 for trade date August 3.  These contracts are listed by NYMEX, and are subject to NYMEX rules and regulations.

  The new basis options contracts and their commodity codes will be:
  --  Henry Hub (5E)
  --  Houston Ship Channel (5F)
  --  SoCal  (5M)
  --  Northwest Pipeline, Rockies (5I)
  --  Panhandle (5K)
  --  Michigan Consolidated Gas (4W)
  --  Texas Eastern Zone M-3 (5N)
  --  Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. Appalachia (TCO) (5D)
  --  Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGLP) TexOk (5H)
  --  Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGLP) Mid-Con (5G)

  --  Waha (5O)




These options will help natural gas producers and consumers to more effectively hedge their exposure to natural gas price fluctuations at regional delivery points outside of the Henry Hub.

The contract will be 2,500 mmBtus in size with a minimum price fluctuation of $0.01 per barrel.  There will be 10 strike prices in increments of $0.01 per mmBtu above and below the "at-the-money" strike price, for a total of 21 strike prices. The expiration date will be the last business day of the underlying month of the futures contract.

The first listed month will be the August 2009 contract.  The contracts will be listed for 48 consecutive months.

For more information please visit http://www.cmegroup.com/clearport.

CME Group (http://www.cmegroup.com/) is the world's largest and most diverse derivatives exchange.  Building on the heritage of CME, CBOT and NYMEX, CME Group serves the risk management needs of customers around the globe.  As an international marketplace, CME Group brings buyers and sellers together on the CME Globex electronic trading platform and on trading floors in Chicago and New York.  By acting as the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer, CME Clearing virtually eliminates counterparty credit risk.  CME Clearing also offers financial safeguards to help mitigate systemic risk, providing the security and confidence market participants need to operate, invest and grow.  CME Group offers the widest range of benchmark products available across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, and alternative investment products such as weather and real estate.  CME Group is listed on NASDAQ under the symbol "CME."

The Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME Group, Globex, E-mini and CME ClearPort are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago.  NYMEX and New York Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.  Further information about CME Group and its products can be found at http://www.cmegroup.com/.

CME-G 

DATASOURCE: CME Group



CONTACT:  Media, Anu Ahluwalia, [phone], or Allan Schoenberg,

[phone], , or Investors, John Peschier,

[phone], all of CME Group



Web Site:  http://www.cmegroup.com/ 

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