Nymex president to quit

Bo Collins, president of The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), will leave the exchange at the end of this month. Nymex said the decision not to renew his contract was made by "mutual agreement".

"This is fresh news to us, so we have not yet found a replacement, although a search is planned," a Nymex spokeswoman told RiskNews' sister publication Energy Risk. She added that Collins is not making his future plans public.

Collins was made president of the exchange in July 2001. Although his earliest professional experience was in commercial banking with the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, Collins quickly found his calling when he moved to New York at the age of 27 to trade as a natural gas and crude options market-maker on the Nymex floor. He later moved to energy firm El Paso, rising to senior vice-president of the Houston-based company's merchant energy division.