M E M O R A N D U M

TO:     All New York Mercantile Exchange members

FROM: Neal Wolkoff, Executive Vice President

RE:        Exchange Board Approves Amendments to Price Limit Rules

DATE:   December 7, 2000

Notice # 00-418
===========================================================

The New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc., board of directors last night 
approved expanding the initial price limits of its natural gas futures 
contracts, creating uniform limits across all months of trading,  
abbreviating the trading halt, expanding the new limits by 200 % when the 
initial limit is reached.

The new natural gas limit would be $1.000 per million British thermal units.

The board amended the procedures for expanding the limits, so that if any 
contract is traded, bid, or offered at the limit for five minutes, the market 
is halted for 15 minutes.  When trading resumes, expanded limits are in place 
that allow the price to fluctuate by $2.000 in either direction of the 
previous day,s settlement price.

Currently, the market is halted for one hour if the price in one of the first 
two months is traded at $.075 for five minutes.  When the market reopens, 
those limits are extended to all months, but are moved to surround the 
previous limit in place in the direction of the move.
Under the new rules, if a halt occurs during the last two days of trading in 
a contract, when the market reopens, there are no price limits placed on 
either of the first two nearby contract months.

These changes must be approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission 
prior to implementation.



__________________________________________________
Please click on the link below to indicate you have received this
email.

"http://208.206.41.61/email/email_log.cfm?useremail=sara.shackleton@enron.com&
refdoc=(00-418)"

Note: If you click on the above line and nothing happens, please copy
the text between the quotes, open your internet browser,
paste it into the web site address and press Return.