Updated throughout with information from Beijing and Shanghai.

Nearly all companies covered by emissions trading schemes in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen met Tuesday’s 2014 compliance deadline, the local CO2 exchanges said.

The Shanghai ETS firms all surrendered permits in time for the June 30 deadline, the Shanghai Energy and Environment Exchange said Wednesday, meaning the municipal government avoided having to delay the true-up like it was forced to last year.

Meanwhile, by end of business Tuesday, 633 companies had surrendered permits to cover their 2015 CO2 emissions, making the compliance rate for the Shenzhen ETS 99.68%, according to the China Emissions Exchange in Shenzhen.

In Beijing, all but 14 of 543 covered companies complied by June 15, the initial deadline, but the laggers all handed over permits by June, which was the deadline for imposing penalties on those still in non-compliance, the Beijing Environment Exchange said.

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But as usual for the Chinese markets, no information was made available about how much CO2 ETS participants emitted last year, or whether there was a surplus or shortage of permits.

Central government officials have on several occasions identified the lack of transparency in the pilot markets as one of the key issues that need to be addressed if the national ETS is to be successful.

Beijing officials have said CO2 from key emitters fell 5.96% last year, though it is unclear if the number is the same for ETS participants, and how that might have impacted the market balance.

The Shanghai exchange said 4.14 million allowances and just over 2 million CCERs had traded on the exchange during the compliance year, with daily average volumes 5% higher than the previous year. The scheme covers around 160 million tonnes of CO2.

The increase in volume was attributed 21 new exchange members in the “institutional investor” category, including Shell China, CITIC Securities and Haitong.

The Shenzhen scheme is the smallest of the seven pilot markets, covering around 30 million tonnes of CO2 each year.

Allowances for 2015 will begin trading on the Shenzhen exchange on Wednesday, adding to the 2013 and 2014 contracts, which will continue to trade for another year.

By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com