Isra-Mart srl:EU set to reopen more carbon registries this week

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Isra-Mart srl news:

The European Commission will authorise more carbon registries to reopen this week as it strives to increase security levels of the spot trading market in the wake of last month's cyber attack on its Emissions Trading Scheme.

A spokesman for the commission's Climate Action department told BusinessGreen it expects to sanction more registries to reopen at the end of this week, or early next week at the latest.

However, he could not confirm how many registries would reopen or which member states were likely to be affected.

"We're continuously assessing all the information that keeps coming in and sometimes getting back to them to ask questions," he said. "We reopened five last week, but we don't know whether it will be one or several this time. If several are ready then we can reopen them."

ETS spot trading partially resumed on Friday after a 15-day market freeze, in the wake of a cyber attack which saw an estimated €30m (£25m) of carbon credits stolen from the Czech national carbon registry.

Five of the 27 member states were sanctioned to reopen on Friday on the basis that they had proved to the EU that imporved online security measures were in place. But trading volumes have remained low as traders express fears they could inadvertently purchase stolen credits.

Following the freeze, the EU demanded every one of the 27 member states submit an independent report proving their databases meet minimum security starndards to protect traders from thieves.

The spokesman added that the commission is working on ways of harmonising the current security system, enabling it to exert more control over how member states manage allowance thefts.

At the moment individual states govern how they track and recover stolen allowances, meaning the EU cannot publish an official list of all stolen allowances - a scenario that has resulted in concerns amongst traders' that they could inadvertently handle stolen allowances.

The commission has declined to set a date for when all registries will open despite pressure from the International Emissions Trading Association for officials to confirm when registries will reopen fully.

"We're trying to work as quickly as possible but its always been agreed that security is in this case more important than speed," the spokesman said.

In related news, the UK government announced it will auction 4.4 million EU carbon allowances to businesses tomorrow, and published the EU ETS auction schedule for April through to December.

Trading volumes are expected to be lower than usual in tomorrow's auction given the market closure and dent in confidence caused by the security crisis.