France’s nuclear fleet was producing 55,2 gigawatts of electricity on Thursday morning, according to data from grid operator RTE. This is the highest output since February 2019 suggesting a strong recovery following an extended period of disruption mainly caused by extended maintenance.
On Wednesday morning, the European carbon market continued its upward move, trading comfortably above €78, a level last seen in March 2024. Today’s trend is in line with gas, with the TTF front month also trading higher. The carbon market also reacted to the latest trading report published by the ICE platform.
European carbon prices began the trade on a positive note on Monday, continuing the upward trend that started at the end of last week. The EUA Dec’25 contracts were climbing over the €76 mark in early trade, in tandem with gas and oil markets.
An otherwise bearish period on the European carbon market was interrupted in Thursday’s session, where prices instead started to increase in the afternoon, decoupling briefly from both the gas and coal markets.
The most recent Commitment of Traders (CoT) report published by the ICE platform revealed that investment funds have expanded their net long positions (long term-short term) to 19,6 million allowances from 4,5 million allowances in the previous week.
According to Eurelectric, the association that represents the European electricity industry, last year, “the EU achieved the cleanest power generation mix ever,” with emissions from the sector dropping 13% compared to 2023.
Last Friday, the European Commission published the status table on free allocation to industry and heat production for 2024. According to the document, as of 12 December 2024, Member States have distributed nearly 90% of the total amount of allocation for this year, making little progress over the past two weeks.
European carbon prices continue to fall in early Monday morning trading, the last day of trading for the EUA Dec’24 futures contract. Also, today is the last auction of the year due to the holiday break during the Christmas and New Year period, normally a bullish market signal.
The European carbon market fell along with gas on Thursday, dropping at one time to as low as €65,54 and closing the session at €66,10, a level last seen a month ago. Also notable is the daily loss of €2,53, the largest since April.
Dutch bank ING expects the price of carbon allowances in the EU ETS to increase constantly throughout 2025. In its latest forecast, the bank predicts EUAs to average around €74 next year, rising towards the end and reaching values around €78.