The European Energy Exchange (EEX) has reported significant growth in its European Emissions markets in the first half of 2021.
The total volume amounted to 742 million tonnes of CO2 which marks an increase of 32 per cent compared to the first half of the previous year (H1 2020: 561 million tonnes of CO2).
The Emissions Secondary Spot market, which EEX organizes in cooperation with its partner Incubex, rose by 74 per cent to 53 million tonnes of CO2 (H1 2020: 30 million tonnes of CO2), being the main growth driver of the Spot markets which overall increased by 6 per cent to 361 million tonnes of CO2 (H1 2020: 342 million tonnes of CO2).
The Emissions Derivatives market developed extremely positive, increasing by 74 per cent to 381 million tonnes of CO2, with Emission Futures reaching 337 million tonnes of CO2 (+65 per cent) and Emission Options 44 million tonnes of CO2 (+201 per cent). EEX and Incubex further noted a strong increase in the number of trading participants in its EUA Futures order book in which the number of participants increased by 40 per cent y-o-y, reaching a new high and rounding up a strong overall support of clients.
Peter Reitz, EEX Chief Executive Officer, says: “The growth in volume and participants underlines the positive development of our Environmentals offering. In addition to our central role within the EU ETS, we’re honoured to organise the sale of fuel emission allowances for the national German Emissions Trading Scheme (nEHS). The nEHS is an important step to extend CO2 pricing to further sectors and we are committed to contributing to this development towards decarbonised energy markets. As a leading player in emissions trading worldwide, we are perfectly placed to drive the topic of sustainability throughout the commodities business.”
In addition to the secondary markets, EEX is the leading primary auction platform for emission allowances in Europe. Until 30 June 2021, EEX successfully executed 105 primary market emissions auctions in 2021. More that 308 million allowances have been sold via the exchange in the first of 2021, raising more than EUR13.9 billion of revenues for the EU member states as well as the EWR-EFTA states.
