Isra-Mart srl:Carbon markets await new direction

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Isra-Mart srl news:

The EU carbon market is treading water currently, benchmark prices for EUAs and CERs hovering around €14 and €12 respectively. Prices have gone sideways over the past month, with little happening to move the market beyond the daily influences in energy commodities. Trade is listless and in low volumes as the height of the European holiday season approaches.

The benchmark EUA Dec 10 contract closed at €14.23 per tonne on Friday August 6, while Dec 10 CERs finished at €12.06, much the same levels as they were in early July and down €1 or more on June prices. Any chance of sustained higher prices depend on an improvement in the flat European economy or EU agreement to tighten the bloc’s 2020 emissions reduction target from 20 to 30 per cent, currently being considered.

In the primary market, for CER-generating projects being developed, prices are ranging from €8.30 to €10.70 per tonne depending on the share of delivery risk between buyer and seller, according to IDEAcarbon. Uncertainty over the future of the UN’s CDM scheme beyond 2012 also overhangs the CER market

Early trade in the New Zealand ETS sees a small volumes of trades in NZUs as momentum builds slowly. The focus of trade is predominantly in spot transactions with the latest sale reported by OMFinancial at $NZ18.45 (€10.20, $US13.50). The market is linked internationally via the eligibility of CERs in the NZ-ETS. However, lower NZU prices locally mean no demand for secondary CERs at present.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the new owner of the Chicago Climate Exchange, says it will talk to participants in the pioneering US voluntary carbon trading programme about whether its worthwhile continuing the market. Interest has waned and prices have slumped amid the dashed hopes for a federal US cap and trade scheme being passed by Congress this year, or anytime soon.