Friday, February 29, 2008

Futures: NYMEX to Launch First Contracts in Green Exchange Initiative

And they open 'em up on St. Patrick's Day. Very green.
This is going to be fun
From the press release:

The New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc., a subsidiary of NYMEX Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: NMX), today announced that it will introduce the first slate of futures and options contracts as part of its Green Exchange initiative on March 16 for trade date March 17. The initial contracts will be European Union Allowance (EUA) futures and options; Certified Emission Reduction (CER) futures; seasonal nitrogen oxide emission allowance contracts; annual nitrogen oxide allowance futures; and sulfur dioxide emission allowance options contracts.

The futures contracts will be available for trading on the CME Globex® electronic trading platform; the options contracts will be available for trading on the NYMEX trading floor; and all contracts will be available for clearing on NYMEX ClearPort®.

The EUA futures contract (commodity code RC) and CER futures contract (commodity code VA) will be physically delivered at the UK Emissions Trading Registry (UK Registry). The contract size will be 1,000 metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of 1,000 EUA units, and the minimum price fluctuation will be €0.01 per unit.

The EUA options contract (commodity code AV) will be a European-style option that will exercise into the underlying EUA futures contract. It will expire three business days prior to the EUA futures contract and will have 10 strike prices in increments of €0.50 above and below the at-the-money strike price. The EUA options will be traded on the NYMEX trading floor and cleared on NYMEX ClearPort....