February 2006 Market Clearing in the Energy Industry 75 © Copyright 2006, CCRO. All rights reserved. NCC/ North American Energy Credit and Clearing Corp (“NECC”) New York Mercantile Exchange (“NYMEX”) ICE/LCH Clearnet Virtual Markets Assurance Corporation (“VMAC”) Natural Gas Exchange applying a model to determine the probability of those price movements occurring during a liquidation period. Responsiv eness to Customers ICE provides help desk support out of Atlanta and London offices. The Atlanta office provides around the clock service during the week from 8PM Sunday through 5:30 PM Friday (EST) and the London office provides support from 7AM to 6PM (GMT) Monday through Friday. NECC maintains a customer support desk in Chicago that is available to answer questions and facilitate collateral / cash movement. NECC’s hours of operation are from 7AM to 5:30PM (CPT). In addition for RTO markets NCC plans to work with RTO staff to provide any needed training for participants and/or support relevant stakeholder forums / market changes. NYMEX Customer Service currently operates each week from Sunday 5 p.m. through Friday 5 p.m., which corresponds to the current operating hours of NYMEX’s markets. Professionals deeply familiar with NYMEX’s contracts, markets, trading platforms and policies, staff it. They are qualified to assist in correcting trading errors from electronically traded platforms and inputting OTC- executed trades into the NYMEX clearing system. ICE provides help desk support out of Atlanta and London offices. The Atlanta office provides around the clock service during the week from 8PM Sunday through 5:30 PM Friday (EST) and the London office provides support from 7AM to 6PM (GMT) Monday through Friday. VMAC is required to maintain a Participants Advisory Committee that is randomly selected and will meet at least once every 3 months and will be a forum for all Participant issues, including algorithms, indices, correlations and products. Hours of operation are 6:30 AM to4:00 PM MST, Monday- Friday, 8:30- 12:00 MST Saturday and Sunday. Help desk open 1 hour before and after trading hours. Key risk management available 24 hours a day. Open Access For OTC markets, participants have the option to select NECC clearing on WebICE thus transacting The cleared electricity product will be processed through NYMEX in a similar manner to a cleared OTC-executed Eligible Commercia l Entities as defined by the CFTC are able to VMAC Participants submit trade date for hedging swaps directly. The venue for NGX utilizes a its proprietary electronic trading system, as well as providing a