(Updates throughout)

Access to the EU’s emissions registry was restored around 1100 GMT on Friday after the online trading hub was hit by technical problems that for a few hours prevented account holders from logging in or transferring carbon units.

Two sources said the registry appeared to be working again, hours after several governments reported technical problems with its ECAS security system, which requires users to authenticate their activities using a mobile phone.

A European Commission spokeswoman confirmed the issue, without providing more details including the cause.

Traders said the outage briefly prevented the movement of carbon units within the registry, but noted that trade in the secondary market didn’t appear to be affected.

Emitters in the EU ETS are required to surrender carbon units against their 2015 emissions by Apr. 30, meaning that any prolonged registry outage could affect their ability to comply.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com