Market operator ICE Futures Europe has waived fees for participants trading its daily EUA futures if making up part of a time spread, in an effort to attract activity to its spot contract.

In a circular published on Tuesday, the bourse said it would not charge members for the daily futures leg of any spread trade that includes the prompt contract.

The programme, which is open to all ICE members, applies to spreads that feature a second leg involving any of the following futures contracts:

Sep-15                  Oct-15                   Nov-15                 Dec-15                  Mar-16
Dec-16                  Dec-17                  Dec-18                 Dec-19                  Dec-20

The programme will run from Sep. 01, 2015 to Mar. 31, 2016, London-based ICE added.

ICE currently hosts nearly all secondary market trade in the EU carbon market.

The move follows similar initiatives launched earlier this year by rival exchange EEX, which is striving to swipe market share from ICE.

Leipzig-headquartered EEX has also waived fees for one leg of EUA spot-futures time spreads, while offering a 50% rebate on trading and clearing costs for members who trade more than 5 million tonnes of emissions per month.

In addition, it has introduced an “initiator-aggressor” programme where trading and clearing fees are waived for the counterparty that initiates a transaction.

EEX currently hosts EU Allowance auctions on behalf of 27 EU nations while ICE handles those so-called primary market sales for the UK government.

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