Australia-based Carbon Trade Exchange (CTX) aims to launch a spot carbon exchange for the RGGI cap-and-trade system, extending its push into North American compliance markets following its California portal launch last week.

“The secondary market for RGGI allowances has grown rapidly and is expected to continue to grow dramatically given the increasing number of non-compliant entities buying allowances in the quarterly auctions,” CTX said in a statement.

Earlier this year the company launched European Environmental Markets, a spot trade exchange for the EU ETS, and last year entered the North American market by offering trade in voluntary carbon credits.

RGGI futures trading volume rose 38% year-on-year in 2014 after regulators drastically reduced the market’s cap and as power companies faced a March 2015 compliance deadline to cover their previous three years of emissions.

Despite the uptick in secondary market activity, utilities held 85% of the allowances in circulation at the end of 2014 and get the lion’s share of the allowances via auctions, according to an annual review by the market’s official monitor published earlier this week.

By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com