The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) announced today the results of the thirty-first quarterly auction of CO2 allowances under the regulatory program. This is the first auction since RGGI allowances began a sell off in which Vintage 2016 allowance prices dropped 25% over the last 30 days.

All of the allowances on offer, which include CO2 allowances from allocation year 2016, were sold at the auction held on March 09, 2016. The clearing price was $5.25, which is the lowest clearing price since the 26th Auction held in December 2014. The clearing price is also off from the auction record clearing price of $7.50, achieved at the December 2015 auction.The clearing price was not high enough to trigger the sale of allowances from the RGGI Cost Containment Reserve. The 2016 CCR Trigger price is $8.00 per ton.

The March auction offered more than 14 million allowances from participating RGGI states. Bidding interest was strong with bids exceeding supply by a ratio of 3.5:1. Compliance-oriented entities purchased 59% of the allowances on offer. More details on the auction are in the table below:

For more information on RGGI allowance markets or to transact in the market, contact our U.S. Carbon and Emissions Markets desks at: +1 914.323.0255.