Vattenfall will close its Amsterdam-based trading floor, including its emissions desk, over the next two years in order to consolidate operations out of its Hamburg office, the Swedish-owned utility announced Thursday.

The company said around 200 jobs would be affected at the Amsterdam office, which had been home to Dutch utility Nuon before Vattenfall acquired the firm in 2009.

“The reason is cost reduction and increased focus on renewable energy and customers,” Vattenfall said in a press release.

“Vattenfall has submitted a request for advice from the Central Works Council in the Netherlands and informed the unions.”

The company said it wants to start the transfer of operations in early 2017 with an aim to finalise it by Q1 2018.

A Nuon spokeswoman said there will be redundancies but it was too early to know how many as that figure would be based in part on the number of employees willing to relocate to Hamburg.

She confirmed that a small number of business units would remain in the Dutch capital, namely those that support Vattenfall’s large local clients, and that the firm’s Amsterdam-based emissions desk, which is understood to be staffed by at least four people, will move.

A Vattenfall spokesman said the firm’s main emissions desk is in Amsterdam but that some carbon is currently traded out of Hamburg.

Vattenfall said its Nordic trading activities will remain based in Stockholm.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com