All 552,000 EU Allowances sold in Lithuanian auction

Press Release, for immediate release

Vilnius, Budapest and Amsterdam, 10 September 2007

Today, Vertis Environmental Finance and New Values announce the successful execution of the Lithuanian auction of EU Allowances. A total of 552,000 EU Allowances (EUAs) were on offer in an electronic auction coordinated by Vertis Environmental Finance on the Climex Exchange. A total volume of 552,000 EUAs was transacted at a price of € 0.06 per tonne.

On behalf of the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Environmental Investment Fund was responsible for the sale of first phase compliance EUAs of the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). According to the Lithuanian National Allocation Plan 2005-2007, 1.5 % of the total Lithuanian allocation, 552,000 EUAs, was available for auctioning.

Lithuania was among the four member states, along with Denmark, Hungary and Ireland offering part of their total allocations for sale in the first trading period. The Lithuanian auction was the third auction in a row, after the Hungarian auctions, on the Climex Spot Platform. The National Allocation Plans for the second trading period indicate that auctioning will have a more important part in future.

”We are pleased that the total amount offered was sold. Recently the phase one market is very shallow; all the attention is on phase two and on linking” said Barna Baráth, CEO of Vertis Environmental Finance. “It is a great achievement that the Climex Alliance raised a healthy interest for this volume under such market conditions” - he added.

”Auctioneering proved to be a transparent and widely accessible way for selling emission credits with good returns for the auctioneer”, said Axel Posthumus, CEO of New Values. “The cooperation between New Values and Vertis gives auctioneers a full service package with easy access to the Climex Spot Auction and Trading Platform and clearing facilities. We see an increase in interest from governments and project developers and also the number of Climex members has been growing steadily to 72 as we speak. For the remainder of 2007 we have a special transaction fee of € 0.5 cent for all EUA spot transactions. ”

-ENDS-

Sascha Bloemhoff
Sales Manager