California handed out 565,179 offsets to four projects over the past fortnight that included the first awards from a project using the Clean Harbors ozone destruction facility since the prolific operation opted to return to the market.

The latest awards increase California’s all-time issuance total by 1.6% to 36.6 million.

Chemical firm Solvay received 487,676 of the units, which were all converted from early action credits generated from its Green River Trona coal mine methane project in Wyoming, the Air Resources Board said in its fortnightly issuance update on its website.

Some 45,663 offsets were awarded to EOS Climate for an ozone destruction (ODS) project carried out at the Clean Harbors facility in Arkansas, one of just three such plants in the US that has carried out work that resulted in California offsets being awarded.

Clean Harbors had been one of the market’s biggest operators up until its investigation for an invalidation in late 2014 that ultimately resulted in 88,955 offsets being annulled from an EOS Climate ODS project.

The company opted to suspend the part of its business related to offsets but began taking on new work in the second half of 2015.

LOWER RATE

California’s issuance over the past fortnight was lower than the average 752,000 per fortnight issued over 2015, and less than half the 1.26 million handed out a fortnight earlier, over 1 million of which went to a Peabody Coal coal mine methane project.

Companies regulated by the state scheme handed in nearly 12.8 million offsets in total against their capped emissions for 2013 and 2014, meaning the supply currently in circulation is around 23.8 million.

By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com