Vertis – Strong auction results, higher power prices and improving profitability of coal fired power plants, the EUA Dec17 gained 0.75% last week.

After a relatively strong start the EUA Dec17 turned lower last Monday morning. The decline accelerated after the auction cleared at a 6 cents discount to the secondary market, and the price hit a daily low at 5.27 euro. The improving dark spread helped the price in recovering until 5.32 euro in the afternoon, but the price turned lower in the afternoon again to finish the day with a loss of 1.3%. To reflect summer mood, the traded volume fell further from the daily average of 7.7 million seen last week to 3.7 million.

The EUA Dec17 contract opened Tuesday’s session at 5.32 euro and traded between 5.25 euro and 5.34 euro, before ending the day at 5.27 euro, where it also closed on Monday. A modest volume of 4 million EUAs were traded.

Despite opening one cent below Tuesday’s settlement price, the benchmark carbon contract recovered quickly and hit a daily high at 5.41 euro already before Wednesday noon. The price received good support from a strong energy mix. Especially, the improving dark spread had a positive effect. As a consequence, the price finished the day with a gain of 10 cents (+1.9%). After trading close to the lower edge of the increasing trend channel for two days, the EUA Dec17 returned higher and the risk of breaking below the trend channel decreased again. Tuesday`s and Wednesday`s candles formed a bullish engulfing, generally a positive sign, although the low summer volume does not support the technical signal.

The EUA Dec17 opened with a two cents gap up on Thursday and explored levels not seen since 19 July by hitting 5.47 euro during the day. Although power prices climbed higher, the rally in coal prices deteriorated the German dark spread and weighed also on the price of allowances. As a consequence, the price gave back all its gains from the day, and closed at 5.37 euro, unchanged from Wednesday’s settlement.

The price had a relatively volatile day within a 12 cents range on Friday. The price started the day at Thursday`s settlement level and slipped briefly to a daily minimum at 5.34 euro to climb to 5.46 euro early in the afternoon. By the end of the day the price returned close to its opening levels and kept only 2 cents from its gains.

Thanks to the reduced auction supply and the higher power prices, the increasing trend channel is unhurt and is expected to keep the price also this week.

There will be a total of 8.9 million allowances auctioned this week, 17.1% less than last week. There will be only four auctions this week due to a public holiday in Germany on Tuesday (Assumption Day).

The lower auction volume will continue to support the price of allowances this week again, but temperatures returning to or below the seasonal average will decrease the demand for power for air conditioning, potentially also reducing the demand for allowances. We therefore expect the price of allowances to move between 5.20 and 5.62 euro this week.

Bloomberg and ICE