Platts launches Australian Safeguard Mechanism Credit price assessment

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, has launched an Australian Safeguard Mechanism Credit (SMC) price assessment, effective May 5.

This follows a proposal note published March 24 and a decision note published April 7.

SMCs are tradeable emission reduction credits that are generated when a safeguard facility reduces emissions beyond its baseline. A safeguard facility is mandated by the Australian government to mitigate its emissions either by introducing operational changes or by purchasing SMCs or Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).

Safeguard facilities that earn SMCs can trade them by selling them to other facilities or surrendering them to stay within their baseline. SMCs are not offsets -- they allow facilities with lower emissions reduction costs to sell their SMCs to facilities with higher reduction costs.

An SMC represents one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (mtCO2e) emissions below a facility's baseline.

The assessment reflects SMCs in the spot market, following issuances from Australia's Clean Energy Regulator (CER), providing more transparency to market participants.

The specifications of the new price assessment are as follows:

• Volume: 5,000-100,000 mtCO2e
• Currency: Australian dollars
• Unit of measurement: Australian dollars per metric ton of CO2 equivalent (A$/mtCO2e)
• Delivery: Spot market
• Frequency: Daily
• Time stamp: 16:30 Melbourne/Sydney/Canberra time
• Platts publishing calendar: Asia-Pacific carbon calendar

A monthly average is also published for the assessment.

The new symbols are as follows:

These symbols can be found in Carbon Markets Daily and in the fixed pages ETA2017 and CMA2017.

Please send any comments, feedback and questions to platts_carbon@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com.

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