6 April 2005 — Natsource LLC announced today that The Okinawa Electric Power Company, Inc. has joined its Greenhouse Gas Credit Aggregation Pool (GG-CAP), the world's first private-sector mechanism to help corporations and governments effectively manage their European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and Kyoto Protocol (KP) compliance requirements to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This latest member joins a little more than a month after the pool’s first close and follows Cosmo Oil Company, Ltd.'s recent announcement that it had joined the pool. The GG-CAP will be managed by Natsource Asset Management Corp (NAM Corp), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Natsource.

The GG-CAP will purchase and manage the delivery of a large pool of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions (ERs) that Buyers can use to comply with EU ETS and KP emission reduction requirements. The mechanism will assist Buyers by using a pooling approach to purchase GHG ERs. These ERs, which would be supplemental to Buyers’ domestic actions to reduce their emissions, are used for compliance in EU Member States, Japan and Canada. It is estimated that the EU, Japan and Canada will be approximately 3.5 billion tons short of their KP emission reduction obligations between 2008 and 2012, based on current emissions trends. Leveraging the collective purchasing power of the Buyers, NAM Corp will purchase and manage a large pool of ERs. To date, Buyers have committed approximately €82 million (approximately US$105 million). Committed capital is forecasted to further increase to €98.6 million (approximately US$135 million) in the near future.

Participants in the GG-CAP now include nine European, Japanese and Canadian firms. The Okinawa Electric Power Company, Inc. and Cosmo Oil Company, Ltd., join the Electricity Supply Board (Ireland), The Chugoku Electric Power Company, Inc., Hokkaido Electric Power Company, Inc., Osaka Gas Company, Ltd., and Tokyo Gas Company, Ltd. as publicly announced participants. Participating companies are engaged in electricity generation, chemical manufacturing, oil and gas production, refining, and gas transmission and distribution.