CME Group Announces the Launch of New Natural Gas Liquids Average Price Options Contracts

CHICAGO, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CME Group, the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the launch of trading and clearing services for four new five-decimal place natural gas liquids average price 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 substantially mitigate counterparty risk and provide neutral settlement prices across asset classes. Trading and clearing are scheduled to begin on October 11 for trade date October 12. These contracts will be listed by and subject to the rules and regulations of NYMEX.

The average price options contracts and commodity codes will be: -- Mont Belvieu LDH propane five decimals (OPIS) (4H) -- Mont Belvieu natural gasoline five decimals (OPIS) (4I) -- Mont Belvieu ethane five decimals (OPIS) (4J) -- Mont Belvieu normal butane five decimals (OPIS) (4K)

Expanding our suite of natural gas liquids products based on OPIS pricing will provide additional hedging opportunities for this marketplace. These contracts will trade in the one-thousandth of a cent per gallon as opposed to the standard one-hundredth of a cent per gallon.

The contracts will be listed for 36 consecutive months with October 2009 the first listed month. The contracts will be 42,000 gallons in size and have a minimum price fluctuation of $0.00001 per gallon. There will be 20 strike prices in increments of $0.0001 per gallon above and below the at-the-money strike prices, for a total of 41 strike prices.

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

As the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (http://www.cmegroup.com/) is where the world comes to manage risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather and real estate. CME Group brings buyers and sellers together through its CME Globex® electronic trading platform and its trading facilities in New York and Chicago. CME Group also operates CME Clearing, one of the largest central counterparty clearing services in the world, which provides clearing and settlement services for exchange-traded contracts, as well as for over-the-counter derivatives transactions through CME ClearPort®. These products and services ensure that businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty credit risk in both listed and over-the-counter derivatives markets.

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/.

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