NEW YORK and CHICAGO, Dec. 7,
2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most
diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced it will work with
oil market participants to discuss developing a new Gulf Coast
crude oil futures contract at the ECHO Terminal, a storage facility being developed
by Enterprise Products Partners L.P., to be listed on the NYMEX
exchange. Connected to multiple facilities along the Houston Ship
Channel, the ECHO Terminal is
expected to begin service during the second quarter of 2012. The
ECHO Terminal will be the
destination of Enterprise's Eagle Ford Crude pipeline, as well as
the Seaway pipeline following the reversal project announced
November 16, 2011 by Enbridge Inc.
and Enterprise. Once the process of changing the flow
direction has been completed, Seaway will transport crude from
Cushing, Oklahoma to the
Houston refining market. The
Seaway pipeline will accommodate growing domestic crude oil
production supplies from the Cushing hub and Canada.
"The recent announcement to reverse the Seaway pipeline
represents a major development for the North American crude oil
market, and will be an important logistical solution for the vital
Cushing marketplace," said
Bryan Durkin, chief operating
officer and managing director, products & services at CME
Group. "We believe this new project will make the NYMEX Light Sweet
Crude Oil (WTI) benchmark more accessible to global markets,
bringing 150,000 barrels a day to the Gulf from Cushing by the second quarter of 2012 and
approximately 400,000 barrels a day by 2013. This is a significant
milestone, and we look forward to working with our oil industry
customers to explore the development of a new physically-delivered
crude oil futures contract at Enterprise's ECHO terminal."
Michael A. Creel, president and
chief executive officer of Enterprise's general partner, stated,
"As part of our integrated network of midstream assets, the ECHO
Terminal provides an important
delivery point for domestic crude oil production from conventional
areas, as well as the growing shale plays. We look forward to
working with CME Group as it develops a new Gulf Coast crude oil
contract that helps the global energy market manage risk more
effectively."
CME Group will consider developing a new contract with similar
quality specifications as the current NYMEX WTI contract traded at
Cushing to be listed on the NYMEX
exchange. Other crude oil contracts could be added for
physical delivery at ECHO as market demand warrants. Through the
ECHO Terminal, shippers will have
access to the major refineries in Texas
City, Pasadena/Deer Park, Baytown and others along the Houston Ship
Channel. Altogether, these facilities represent more than 2
million barrels per day of refining capacity. Engineering
work is now under way for an extension of Seaway from the ECHO
Terminal to Port Arthur, Texas, which features heavy crude
oil refining capabilities.
About Enterprise Products Partners L.P.
Enterprise Products Partners L.P. is one of the largest publicly
traded partnerships and a leading North American provider of
midstream energy services to producers and consumers of natural
gas, NGLs, crude oil, refined products and petrochemicals.
EPD's assets include approximately: 50,000 miles of onshore and
offshore pipelines; 192 million barrels of storage capacity for
NGLs, refined products and crude oil; and 27 billion cubic feet of
natural gas storage capacity. Services include: natural gas
transportation, gathering, processing and storage; NGL
fractionation, transportation, storage, and import and export
terminaling; crude oil and refined products storage, transportation
and terminaling; offshore production platform; petrochemical
transportation and storage; and a marine transportation business
that operates primarily on the United
States inland and Intracoastal Waterway systems and in the
Gulf of Mexico. For additional information about Enterprise
please visit www.enterpriseproducts.com.
About CME Group
As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace,
CME Group (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
world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, which
offers 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.
CME Group is a trademark of CME Group Inc. The Globe Logo, CME,
Globex and Chicago Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of Chicago
Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and the Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the
Board of Trade of the City of
Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and
ClearPort are registered 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 (NASDAQ:
CME) and its products can be found at www.cmegroup.com.
This press release includes "forward-looking statements" as
defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. All statements,
other than statements of historical fact, included herein that
address activities, events, developments or transactions that
Enterprise and CME Group expect, believe or anticipate will or may
occur in the future, including anticipated benefits and other
aspects of such activities, events, developments or transactions,
are forward-looking statements. Although Enterprise and CME Group
believe that the forward-looking statements included herein are
based on information and assumptions which are current, reasonable
and complete, these statements are necessarily subject to a variety
of risks and uncertainties, including required approvals by
regulatory agencies, the possibility that the anticipated benefits
from such activities, events, developments or transactions cannot
be fully realized, the possibility that costs or
difficulties related thereto will be greater than expected, the
impact of competition and other risks and uncertainties included in
the reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by
Enterprise and CME Group, respectively. While Enterprise and CME
Group make these forward-looking statements in good faith, should
one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should
underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ
materially from those expected. Readers are cautioned not to place
undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak
only as of their dates. Except as required by law, neither
Enterprise nor CME Group intends to update or revise its
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise.
CME-G
SOURCE CME Group