EU verified CO2 data to be published April 15: EC

London — The European Commission will publish a complete dataset for verified CO2 emissions across the EU Emissions Trading System for 2019 on April 15, rather than the usual date of April 1.

The figures, which are expected to show a year-on-year drop of up to 140 million mt or 8-9% compared with 2018 levels, will be released in a spreadsheet in two weeks' time.

Normal practice under the EU ETS involves the regulator providing partial CO2 data on April 1, a day after the deadline for regulated companies to send their emissions reports to national authorities.

The EC said installation-level data would be made available Wednesday in the EU's Transaction Log, which tracks ownership of allowances held in the EU's central emissions registry. However, those figures appeared to showing a blank for 2019 as of Wednesday.

A full dataset will not be available until April 15, the EC said in a statement March 26.

The EC had not immediately responded to requests to comment Wednesday.

Some EU carbon market observers said clarity on the EC's announcements regarding the data release could have been better.

"In the EU ETS, as with other environmental markets, the actions and statements of regulatory authorities will have direct market consequences," said Jeff Berman, director of emissions and clean energy at S&P Global Platts Analytics.

"I don't think anyone would have faulted the commission for delaying the data release given the circumstances, but the lack of transparency is a little frustrating," he said Wednesday.

"However, we continue to expect that the 2019 emissions data will show an 8.1-8.7% year-on-year decline in covered stationary emissions," he said.

CO2 emissions across the EU ETS are widely expected to have fallen in 2019 by the most since the 2008 global financial crisis, driven by natural gas and renewables pushing coal out of the power market in many European countries, and only moderate growth in the industrial sectors.

EU Allowance futures contracts for December 2020 delivery on the ICE Futures Europe exchange traded in a range of Eur16.70/mt ($17.97/mt) to Eur17.34/mt Wednesday, compared with Eur17.68/mt at the close Tuesday.