China has issued nearly 9.4 million fresh CCERs taking the total amount of offsets in the market to around 33 million, but only a third of the most recent batch is eligible for compliance in the seven pilot schemes.

The vast majority of the 32 projects that earned CCERs in the latest issuance round were Category 3, or so-called pre-CDM projects, which can’t be used towards compliance in any of the pilot markets.

Five Category 1 projects were given a combined 3.43 million offsets, which will likely be snapped up by emitters looking for a cheaper compliance option.

Two of those – a Beijing wind farm and a gas-fired power plant owned by Shougang Iron and Steel – got more than 1.5 million CCERs each.

CCER prices vary wildly in the seven pilot markets depending on allowance prices, but the most liquid market for offsets is Shanghai, where over 500,000 CCERs traded Monday, closing at 15.70 yuan, up 6.8% on the day.

This was the first time a significant number of CCERs eligible in the pilots has been issued, confirming the trend seen in recent project approvals that new projects are playing an increasingly important part in the market.

The NDRC also issued just over 300,000 offsets to two Category 2 projects, which are projects that at one stage got letters of approval (LoAs) from the Chinese government to operate under the CDM, but never registered with the UN.

State-owned China General Nuclear owned 12 of the 32 projects.

By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com

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