The 138 firms covered by the Hubei emissions trading scheme emitted 236 million tonnes of CO2 in 2014, 3.2% less than the previous year, the Hubei carbon exchange said.

The province’s biggest power generators, manufacturers and chemical companies regulated under the scheme saw an absolute emission drop of 7.81 million tonnes last year, and exceeded the central government’s annual carbon intensity reduction target, the exchange said.

The announcement makes Hubei the first of China’s pilot carbon markets to release detailed emissions data for ETS participants.

But it remains unclear whether the market overall was long or short, as the total number of allowances distributed to emitters has not been made public.

The Hubei government set aside 298 million permits to be handed out to emitters for free for free for 2014, but only 193 million were immediately distributed. The rest were held back in case the government wished to make adjustments after all participants had submitted verified emissions data for the year.

So far, the DRC has not announced if it made any such adjustments.

Hubei emitters were obligated to hand over permits to the government to cover their emissions last Friday, but one in five failed to do so.

The remaining 27 companies are expected to comply this week, and allowance prices on Monday rose 7.3% to 27.72 yuan ($4.47), a two-month high and the second highest closing price since the market opened in April last year.

Meanwhile, the Tianjin government said Monday that all but one of its ETS participants had finalised compliance last Friday.

Tianjin had postponed its original compliance deadline, but had not announced a new one.

By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com

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