The New York Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest physical commodity exchange, has signed an agreement with Ardour Global Indexes, a developer of benchmark indexes for the global alter

The New York Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest physical commodity exchange, has signed an agreement with Ardour Global Indexes, a developer of benchmark indexes for the global alternative energy industry, to introduce alternative energy index futures and options contracts.

Says Nymex Chairman Richard Schaeffer said, 'The introduction of alternative energy indexes is an exciting initiative for Nymex. We have seen an interest in what we believe will be an expanding segment of the world's energy markets, and we strive to introduce innovative new products to the energy arena.'

The Ardour Global Alternative Energy Indexes were designed to serve as fair, impartial and transparent measures of the performance of the alternative energy industry. So far this year, the AGI has risen over 5 per cent, reflecting surging interest in the sector caused by high energy prices, as well as security and environmental concerns.

The capitalisation-weighted, float-adjusted family of indexes incorporates companies engaged in five primary alternative energy sectors: alternative energy resources, including wind, solar and ethanol bio-mass; distributed generation; environmental controls; energy efficiency; and enabling technologies.

Says Joseph LaCorte, a member of the AGI index committee: 'The transformation of the world's energy supply from fossil fuels to alternatives and renewables could become the dominant economic driver of the 21st century. The AGI is the bellwether for that transformation.'

Adds Schaeffer: 'Nymex plans to offer these products on the CME Globex electronic trading platform, where they will be available to investors, risk managers and traders around the world.' The AGI has also been licensed to several major providers of index products, including the Van Kampen division of Morgan Stanley, UBS and Van Eck Global.

Nymex offers futures and options trading in energy and metals contracts and clearing services for more than 300 off-exchange energy contracts. Through a hybrid model of open outcry floor trading and electronic trading on CME Globex and Nymex ClearPort, the exchange offers crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas, coal, electricity, gold, silver, copper, aluminium, platinum group metals, emissions and soft commodities contracts for trading and clearing virtually 24 hours each day.

Ardour Global Indexes was founded in 2005 as a partnership between Ardour Capital Investments, an investment bank specialising in alternative energy finance, and S-Network Energy Technologies, a developer of indexes and investment products focused on both traditional and alternative energy.

Ardour Global Indexes operates as an independent and unbiased source of primary alternative energy information. Its indexes are calculated and maintained by Dow Jones Indexes and supervised by an independent index committee, which includes individuals with long-term domestic and international experience in the field of alternative energy.