Xpansiv’s CBL VCM Saw Significant Block Trades, Xpansiv Connect™ Launched

Xpansiv’s CBL voluntary carbon market (VCM) activity saw significant block trades at both the beginning and end of the week. The week started with a block trade of 175,000 N-GEO Trailing contracts settling at $0.35, marking the largest trade of the week at the lowest unit price. 

The data presented in the report is from the Xpansiv Data and Analytics database. It offers a comprehensive collection of spot firm, indicative bids/offers, and transaction data.

Xpansiv provides extensive market data sourced from CBL, recognized as the world’s largest spot environmental commodity exchange. This includes daily and historical information on bids, offers, and transactions for various environmental assets:

• Voluntary carbon credits,
• Compliance carbon, and
• Voluntary renewable energy certificates. 

On Friday, block trades of 1.2 million metric tons of CBL N-GEO and CBL GEO December futures occurred at $0.99 and $0.44, respectively, driving weekly price gains of 7% and 16% in the contracts.

Trades and Trends from the CBL’s VCM Report

Blocks of N-GEO-eligible carbon credits were settled at prices up to $5.50. This is consistent with the $5.40 monthly average for recent-vintage, spot AFOLU credit transactions on the exchange. Pilot-phase CORSIA GEO-eligible credit blocks traded up to $1.35, slightly below CBL’s $1.98 monthly average price for technology credits. Additionally, 111 OTC-matched ACCU credits were settled via the trading platform.

On-screen matched trades included 500-ton lots of GS 11134 vintage 2022 Rwandan energy efficiency credits traded at $6.50. And VCS 1477 vintage 2016 Cambodian Mai Ndombe AFOLU credits traded at $1.25.

• A total of 275,167 tons were traded via the CBL spot exchange. Plus, an additional 1,810,000 tons were traded via CME Group’s CBL GEO Emissions futures complex.

New offers in the voluntary carbon trading platform included VCS REDD, ARR, and cookstove carbon credits at prices up to $11.00. A request-for-quote (RFQ) seeking bids for 30,000 MWh of South African solar I-RECs generated in 1H 2024 was also circulated at an indicated offer price of $1.00/MWh.

In the North American Compliance Market, there was significant activity with over 70,000 PJM credits exchanged via CBL. This activity was primarily due to counterparties settling bilateral transactions through CBL’s post-trade infrastructure. 

Specifically, 25,000 vintage 2023 Virginia credits were settled, along with 3,574 vintage 2024 DC solar credits and 14,643 vintage 2023 Maryland solar credits.

Screen trading was concentrated in tier 1 PJM markets, where Pennsylvania vintage 2024 credits saw a rise to $35.00 on 9,551 credits traded. Similarly, vintage 2023 Maryland credits experienced a $0.25 increase to $28.00. Finally, there were 6,851 vintage 2024 Virginia credits traded on the CBL at $35.00.

• RELATED: Emissions Futures Rally by Over 25%: Insights from Xpansiv’s CBL Platform

Xpansiv Connect™ to Revolutionize Market Infrastructure

Following their report, Xpansiv® has introduced Xpansiv Connect™, an open-access infrastructure designed to facilitate the scaling of the global energy transition. This initiative includes integration with leading multi-registry environmental asset management and automated settlement systems.

Xpansiv Connect™ offers all stakeholders seamless access to the company’s sophisticated trading, post-trade settlement, meta-registry, and portfolio management platforms. These include end users, brokers, banks, exchanges, and other service and platform providers. 

The platform comes fully integrated with 13 leading global registries. Moreover, Xpansiv Connect™ supports 5 voluntary carbon credit marketplaces and a vast network of hundreds of direct market participants.

Xpansiv is collaborating with prominent market participants globally to develop and enhance solutions and services using the platform. These collaborators include Trafigura, MSCI Carbon Markets, GoNetZero™, and Patch.

John Melby, Chief Executive Officer of Xpansiv®, emphasized the importance of launching this new system, saying that: 

“We believe opening access to our proven, institutional-grade technology infrastructure will best support the ecosystem of interoperable technology and market solutions needed to achieve a timely and equitable global energy transition.” 

Partnerships and Collaborations for a Sustainable Energy Transition

The launch of Xpansiv Connect marks a significant milestone as it opens up Xpansiv’s automated settlement and multi-asset, multi-registry portfolio management system to external trading platforms and exchanges for the first time.

• This move extends the accessibility of Xpansiv’s advanced infrastructure, which processes over 1 billion asset transfers annually, to a broader ecosystem of stakeholders.

Among the partners exploring opportunities to leverage Xpansiv Connect are the Mercantile Exchange of Vietnam and insurers Oka and Kita. Additionally, existing partners such as BeZero Carbon, Sylvera, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia are also supporting Xpansiv Connect.

Remarkably, the carbon marketplace developed by the Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company (RVCMC) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will implement Xpansiv Connect comprehensively. 

• READ MORE: Xpansiv Chosen To Open Carbon Credit Exchange in Saudi Arabia

Leveraging this infrastructure, RVCMC aims to integrate its independent exchange matching engine with post-trade settlement and portfolio management system capabilities. The voluntary carbon credit market aims to become operational by the final quarter of 2024, facilitated by the implementation of Xpansiv Connect.