First Austrian EUA Auction Large Overbid on 16 March 2009

The first Austrian Spot Auction of 300,000 EUAs was conducted by Climex on 16 March 2009. The auction was divided into two auction formats, a Non-Competitve and a Competitve Auction.

The total available volume of 200,000 EUAs was sold in the Competitive EUA Auction at a price of €11.65, while 5,050 EUA were sold during the Non-Competitive Auction. The market price at the start of the auction was €11.50 and increased during the auction to about 11.70€, what was visible as well in the raise of bids during the auction. The market closed that day at a price of €12,06.

The Auction was prepared in cooperation with the BMLFUW, responsible for the sale of the EUAs, and the Österreichischen Energiekonsumenten Verband (ÖEKV), in accordance with the Austrian Allocation Plan and the respective ordinance by the Austrian Government.

The first part of the Auction was a Non-Competitive process with a total volume of 100,000 EUAs followed by a Competitive Auction with a volume of 200,000 EUAs.

The Non-Competitive Auction
In the Non-Competitive process a total volume of 5,050 EUAs was sold. The selling price of €11.65 per tonne was fixed in the following competitive part of the auction. The non-Competitive part was open to all entities or individuals holding an account with an Emissions Trading Registry in any of the EU Member States.

Competitive Auction
In the competitive part of the auction 13 participants placed 69 bids with a total volume of 1,671.550 EUAs. This means the Competitive Auction was more than 9 times overbid.
Bidders ranged from banks, brokers and industry to energy suppliers. The total volume of 200,000 EUAs offered, was sold at a price of € 11.65 per tonne in 8 transactions. Spot Membership with Climex was required for participation in the competitive part of the auction as well as an account with an Emissions Trading Registry in any of the EU Member States.

Buyers in the auction were very positive about the auction platform and process. Their reactions were that the platform is very user-friendly and provides an efficient and effective way to purchase EUAs. Participants stated they will certainly participate in the future (Austrian) Auctions.

The main interest was in the Competitive Auction. This was reflected by a large increase in the number of registrations. 11 organisations managed to complete the membership process on time, of which 6 were industries from Austria. This brought the total to 131 Climex Members at that time. In the meantime this number has grown to 143 Climex Members.
Since not all the EUAs during the Non-Competitive auction were sold, the remaining volume of 94,050 EUAs will be brought to auction at a later date, which will be set by the BMLFUW.