In consideration of the impact of Hurricane Ike, a Delivery Committee panel (the "Committee") convened, Friday September 12, 2008, to review deliveries in progress related to the NYMEX Natural Gas (NG) Futures Contract for the September 2008 contract month.
The Committee noted that Sabine Pipe Line, which operates the Henry Hub facility in Louisiana, shut-down all facilities connected to Sabine and issued a Force Majeure declaration that became effective at 9:00 p.m. Friday September 12, 2008 for intraday 2 cycles.
Based upon this shutdown and declaration by Sabine, the Committee determined to make a finding of Force Majeure with respect to all remaining delivery obligations in the September 2008 Natural Gas contract month effective as of the Force Majeure implementation by Sabine. Further, as certain August 2008 NYMEX deliveries were affected by Hurricane Gustav and extended into September, any of those obligations which may not have been confirmed as completed, are also subject to this declaration. Accordingly, any further action as may be made by the Committee will be undertaken pursuant to its authority as set forth in NYMEX Rule 220.18, in particular Rule 220.18 Section (C)(6). The Committee is currently in close contact with Sabine regarding the handling of all outstanding NYMEX delivery obligations as well as general conditions at the Henry Hub.
All market participants with outstanding September 2008 NYMEX NG obligations will be advised of any further decisions of the Committee via their Clearing Members and through additional Notices To Members posted on the NYMEX website (www.nymex.com). All parties who maintain open NYMEX delivery obligations should be in close contact with their clearing members as to the status of these obligations. Lastly, all parties have available now, as always, the ability to mutually agree to execute an alternative delivery procedure pursuant to NYMEX Rule 220.17(A) for the September 2008 delivery obligations.
