California Cancels Carbon Permit Reserve Sale After No Bids

(Updates with reserve price in fifth paragraph.)

March 4 (Bloomberg) -- California canceled a supplementary sale of carbon permits scheduled this week after receiving no expressions of interest from factories and power stations, the state emissions market administrator said.

“As of the bid guarantee deadline of February 27, 2013, no covered entities or opt-in entities had indicated an intent to bid at the March 2013 reserve sale and provided a bid guarantee,” the State Air Resources Board said in an e-mailed statement. “Therefore, the Air Resources Board will not be holding the reserve sale scheduled for March 8, 2013.”

California’s emissions-trading system allows industrial plants with limits on greenhouse-gas discharges under the system to buy allowances directly from the administrator in quarterly sales. These are in addition to periodic auctions in which banks and trading companies can also participate.

The state sold 12.9 million allowances for 2013 at $13.62 a metric ton in an auction on Feb. 19, the second such sale of permits since the market started last year. The program seeks to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The unsold permits from March will be offered in the next reserve sale scheduled for June, the Air Resources Board said. These supplementary sales have a reserve price of $40 a ton to $50 a ton and are scheduled to help control the price ceiling for the system.

--Editors: Andrew Reierson, Rob Verdonck