SUBSCRIBER NOTE: Platts proposes new Platts-ICE Natural Gas indexes

S&P Global Platts is proposing to launch new regional and national daily natural gas indexes based on its current Gas Daily Averages (GDA) published for North American Platts locations. The GDA is based on the volume-weighted average of all transactions reported to Platts by market participants and trades done on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

Platts would publish a North America index as well as Northeast, South, Midwest and West region indexes, and proposes the following methodology:

Platts would collect interstate pipeline natural gas flows from the Intraday 3 pipeline nomination cycle data to determine locations, location weightings and region weightings. Volumes would be compiled by location according to the location definitions in the Platts North American Natural Gas methodology guide.

a. Locations would be selected in each region with the highest average daily nomination volume in the prior winter (November-March) or summer (April-October) seasons. The top five locations in each region would remain constant for the entirety of the season. To ensure adequate liquidity, each location must also have a minimum mean daily deal count of 20 trades over the prior winter or summer season to be selected.

b. The region indexes would reflect weightings of the five selected locations based on the average daily nomination volume in the prior winter or summer season. The location prices would represent Platts final daily indexes, published around 17:00 Central time, according to the Platts daily gas survey calendar. The location weightings would remain constant for the entirety of the season. No location would have a weighting greater than twice the size of the direct average of the five points, that is, 40%. Should a location need to be capped, any allocation above 40% would be divided equally over the remaining locations in that region.

c. The North America index would reflect weightings of the four region indexes based on each region's average daily nomination volume in the prior winter or summer season. The region weightings remain constant for the entirety of the season. No region would have a weighting greater than twice the size of the simple average of the four regions, that is, 50%. Should a region need to be capped, any allocation above 50% would be divided equally over the remaining regions.

Platts would announce the trading locations, location weightings, and region weightings in April for the following winter and in November for the following summer. Platts will accept comments on the above methodology through October 12, 2018.

Please send any comments to AmericasGasPricing@spglobal.com and pricegroup@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.