The European Investment Bank confirms that sales under the second round of the NER300 programme started successfully on 14 November 2013.

Acting as an agent of the European Commission, the European Investment Bank gradually phased in 1.65 million EU Allowances over the first three trading days. These sales took place using direct screen trades.

The sale of the remaining 100 million EU Allowances is expected to take place over the next five months, depending on liquidity, with an average sales volume of 20 million EU Allowances per month. All EU Allowances will to be sold as futures on the same two markets used for the first round of sales, London based ICE Futures Europe and the European Energy Exchange EEX in Leipzig.

In addition to the direct screen trades, the EIB will also engage in cleared over-the-counter (OTC) transactions on the two exchanges and their respective clearing houses.

The European Investment Bank publishes monthly reports on its website detailing the sales on EU carbon allowances under the NER300 initiative after each calendar month. The first report for the second round sales covering November sales will be published on 11 December.

Background information

The NER 300 scheme is one of the largest funding programmes for carbon capture and storage demonstration projects and innovative renewable energy technologies.

The European Investment Bank started to sell the first tranche of the NER 300 allowances on 5 December 2011 and this phase was completed by 28 September 2012. Under the first tranche more than EUR 1.5 billion was raised available for projects of which EUR 1.2 billion was awarded to a total of 23 projects. The successful projects receiving funding under the first round were announced in December 2012.

Sales carried out under the second round will be completed before the award decisions for the 2nd call for NER 300 projects, which is expected to take place in mid-2014. This will allow alignment of NER300 sales with the 2nd call for proposal. Awards will be made from funds remaining from the first tranche and additional funds raised through the sale of the remaining 100 million EU Allowances.

The European Investment Bank supports the NER300 Initiative as an agent of the European Commission fulfilling two separate roles. Firstly, appraising projects that have been submitted by member states and are seeking funding from the programme and secondly through monetisation of allowances.

More information on the NER300 initiative and the Bank’s involvement is available at http://www.eib.org/ner300.