By Mathew Carr

Dec. 8, 2021 — LONDON: Open interest, a measure of trading positions that have not closed, advanced 23% to 157,470 EU carbon futures contracts by the end of the year vs the same time in 2019, according to EEX.

The exchange uses the measure “synthetic net OI futures,” which has advanced slightly since then to 158,754 contracts, according to the EEX website.

Still, the exchange has a small portion of the market versus ICE Futures Europe, based in London, which had open interest of 1.18 million lots at the end of the year, including options.

So, as the U.K. exited from the EU market, the world’s biggest carbon program by traded volume, there were apparently no huge shifts, according to traders.

But prices have repeatedly hit higher record levels as EU nations have halted daily auctions until Jan. 29.

See this: http://carrzee.org/2021/01/07/eu-carbon-trading-comes-away-unscathed-as-brexit-otherwise-takes-toll/

December volumes for EU carbon futures rose 69% to 52 million tons vs Dec. 2019, EEX said today by email.

See figures for carbon futures here (Note the Dec. future is the most commonly traded, so interest drops each year from end of Nov. to end of Dec. as the future gets delivered):

EEX summary data for all markets here: