South Korea’s Sudokwon Landfill Corp. has converted 856,000 CERs into offsets eligible in the domestic emissions trading scheme, taking the company’s total tally of cancelled UN offsets to over 2.2 million.

Sudokwon’s conversion was the biggest of three cancellations last week that saw 980,000 CERs cancelled and shifted to the supply-starved Korea ETS, a UN website showed.

Korea’s carbon market rules allow companies to cancel UN offsets from Korea-based projects and convert them into Korean Offset Credits (KOCs), which the nation’s emitters can use to meet obligations in the ETS.

Offsets trade in the South Korean market at 18,500 won ($16.23), whereas CERs in the EU ETS only fetch $0.48.

The latest round of cancellations takes the number of Korean offsets to leave the CDM to over 8 million.

But while offset supply is steadily growing in South Korea and there are indications that the market may be long despite lobby groups claiming otherwise, Korean allowances remains at record high levels of 19,000 won.

By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com

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