SUBSCRIBER NOTE: Platts announces new daily, monthly North America natural gas indices

On November 21, 2016, Platts announced an agreement with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to improve natural gas price transparency and bolster North America price benchmarks. Per the agreement, Platts proposed new daily and monthly natural gas indices for Platts locations and ICE locations at the end of the transition period.

The transition period will conclude at the end of May 2017. The new daily indices will be launched on trade date May 31 for gas flow on June 1. The new monthly indices will be launched on May 24, the first day of June bidweek.

After consultation and review of market feedback, Platts will add new assessments under the following methodology:

1. New Preliminary Daily Indices For Platts And ICE Locations:

Platts will publish new preliminary daily price indices for Platts locations shortly after the market close. Only trades executed on the ICE Exchange will be included in the preliminary indices. Platts will not screen the trade data for outliers or apply any other methodology beyond deriving a volume weighted average. The indices will reflect transactions executed between 6 am and 1 pm Central time. Platts will publish the index price, high price, low price, common range, volume, and deal count for each location with trading activity. Price data will not be published for locations with zero transactions. Prices will be published to three decimal places and be rounded to the nearest half-cent.

Platts will not publish preliminary daily indices for ICE locations as proposed. Daily indices for ICE locations will be published once daily, details of which can be found below under No. 3.

2. New Preliminary Monthly Indices For Platts And ICE Locations: Platts will publish preliminary monthly indices for Platts and ICE locations at the end of each day during bidweek. For Platts locations, ICE Exchange trades and Platts price reporter trades, including those matched in eConfirm, will be included in the preliminary monthly indices. Trade data reported for Platts locations will be screened for outliers. For ICE locations, only ICE Exchange trades will be used. Trade data reported for ICE locations will not be screened for outliers. The daily and bidweek to date indices will reflect a volume weighted average of fixed price and basis transactions executed during bidweek. Platts will publish the index price, high price, low price, volume, and deal count for each location with trading activity. Price data will not be published for Platts or ICE locations with zero transactions. Monthly prices and fixed price trade data will be published to 2 decimal places. Basis trade data will be published to three decimal places

3. New Final Daily Indices For ICE Locations:

Platts will publish final daily indices for ICE locations at the same time preliminary daily indices for Platts locations are published. Only trades executed on the ICE Exchange will be included in the final indices for ICE locations. Platts will not screen the trade data for outliers or apply any other methodology beyond the creation of a volume weighted average. The indices will reflect transactions executed between 6 am and 1 pm Central time. Platts will publish the index price, high price, low price, common range, volume, and deal count for each location with trading activity. Price data will not be published for ICE locations with zero transactions. Similar to Platts locations, daily prices for ICE locations will be published to three decimal places and will be rounded to the nearest half-cent.

4. New Final Monthly Indices For ICE Locations:

Platts will publish final monthly indices for ICE locations at the same time as the final monthly indices for Platts locations. Only trades executed on the ICE Exchange will be included in the final indices for ICE locations. Platts will not screen the trade data for outliers or apply any other methodology beyond the creation of a volume weighted average. The indices will reflect transactions executed during bidweek. Platts will publish the index price, high price, low price, volume, and deal count for each location with trading activity. Price data will not be published for ICE locations with zero transactions. Similar to Platts locations, final monthly prices and fixed price trade data for ICE locations will be published to two decimal places. Basis trade data will be published to three decimal places.

Based on consultation and review of market feedback, in addition to ICE Exchange trades, Platts will also use Platts price reporter matched eConfirm trades in preliminary monthly indices for Platts locations. Platts will consider all available, verifiable data. Non-Platts price reporter matched eConfirm trades will be considered in the assessment process, but given the anonymous nature of those trades and the lack of trade exclusion comments, Platts may not be able to verify the data as reportable and may not include it in the index.

Please send any comments to the above to gas_survey_comments@platts.com and pricemethodology@spglobal.com. For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing. Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.