EIB May Have Already Started NER-300 Carbon Sales, Orbeo Says

The European Investment Bank may have already started sales of the first 2013 carbon permits, boosting supply as prices trade near record-low levels, said an analyst at Orbeo. “The EIB could have started already, I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Emmanuel Fages, an analyst in Paris at Orbeo, an emissions trading venture. “This is the only window to achieve their mandate.” He said he had no direct knowledge that sales had started. Solvay SA (SOLB) is buying the 50 percent of Orbeo it doesn’t already own from Societe Generale SA. The European Union’s regulatory arm last week said it has transferred carbon permits from a 2.3 billion-euro ($3.1 billion) reserve to the EIB, saying that sales of the allowances may last until the end of 2013. The 27-nation EU decided in 2008 to use proceeds from the sale of 300 million post-2012 permits from the reserve for new entrants to the bloc’s cap-and-trade program to encourage renewable energy and carbon capture technologies. The first tranche of 200 million permits has to be sold by Oct. 2, 2012, and the remaining allowances may be sold later than the originally planned end-2012 deadline, according to the EU.