Singapore, 13 November 2009 

CME Group has announced the launch of trading and clearing services for three new Argus Sour Crude Index (“ASCI”) swap futures contracts and an Argus WTI formula basis calendar month swap futures contract. 

Trading for all four 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 November 22 for trade date November 23. These contracts will be listed by and subject to the rules and regulations of NYMEX. 

The swap futures contracts and commodity codes will be: ASCI vs. WTI diff spread trade month (36); ASCI calendar month (37); ASCI vs. WTI diff spread calendar month (38); and Argus WTI formula basis calendar month (39). These products are in addition to the ASCI trade month swap futures contract (29) that was announced on October 30.

The ASCI swap futures contracts will accommodate market participants who wish to either hedge or otherwise lock-in a transaction at a set value for the ASCI. Users can include those who already have or anticipate having floating-price risk with respect to the ASCI either as a seller or buyer. The ASCI swap futures can also be utilized to hedge transactions for individual crude streams, such as its Mars, Poseidon and Southern Green Canyon components. In addition, they can be used for spread trading, in particular the sweet-sour spread, which would involve a combination of buying WTI and selling ASCI futures or selling WTI and buying ASCI futures.

The first listed month will be the January 2010 contract, and they will be listed for 36 consecutive months.

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www.cmegroup.com/clearport