The overwhelming factor in Nymex's favour is the sheer difficulty involved in taking a contract from an established exchange. Since Eurex took the Bund from Liffe in the late 90s the path has been littered with failures, most notably perhaps Eurex US's brave but doomed attack on Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT)'s US Treasury bonds. Elsewhere, Euronext Liffe has tried and failed with a competitor to Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)'s Eurodollar while Nymex itself got nowhere with the Brent crude contract listed at its European subsidy.
This raft of failures had led some to believe that it was close to impossible for one exchange to take a contract from another - whatever incentives were offered the stickiness of traders to an existing liquidity pool had always proved too great. After all, cheap or nonexistent exchange fees are no use when participants are unable to get filled on a rival market.
Perhaps...