Purple patch for green trading as EOR grows

CO2e.com, the Toronto-based environmental trading arm of broker Cantor Fitzgerald, has brokered the largest publicly announced green forward trade. The deal, which comprises a forward firm purchase of 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2eq) and an option for 3 million tCO2eq, were traded by Salt Lake City, Utah-based greenhouse gas marketer Blue Source and Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the power producer from Toronto.

The trade has come as part of OPG’s voluntary efforts to reduce its emissions and the CO2 sold to Blue Source will be used by the latter’s clients in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). EOR is the practice of re-pressurising emptying wells with CO2 to gather more oil.

Justin Guest, associate director at environmental finance house EcoSecurities in London, said the size of this deal is significant. “Deals of this magnitude are few and far between,” he said, but he believes that bigger deals will soon follow. “A project will undoubtedly come to eclipse this one before long.” Guest believes growth in EOR, which has already made an impact in countries such as Norway and the US, will be the driving force.

Guest added that the UK could prove a big potential market. “If we can get the carbon dioxide from power production up to the North Sea oil fields, then there is potentially an enormous resource there waiting to be tapped,” said Guest. “But the pipelines and infrastructure will have to be built so it is not going to happen overnight.”