"Gazprom" attacks the market for carbon emissions certificates

• The Russians, the Japanese and the Swiss are vying over brokering a deal of more than 1 billion Euros

• Some experts say that Romania shouldn"t sell its current surplus of carbon emission certificates for less than 2 billion Euros, whereas others argue that it shouldn"t sell them at all

Russian giant "Gazprom" has been fighting other heavyweights of the energy industry for years, over the right of intermediating the sale of Romania"s carbon emission certificates, a deal which is estimated to exceed 1 billion Euros.

Government sources claim that over the last few months, the representatives of "Gazprom" held several rounds of negotiations with the officials of the Romanian Ministry of the Economy, in order to become Romania"s official intermediary in the sale of its emissions certificates. So far, the only concrete result is the fact that the Government has passed an emergency ordinance specifically for allowing the sale of these certificates.

The recent government reshuffle has blocked the activity of the commission which was specially created by the government to negotiate the intermediation contract. The commission also included the ministers of the Economy and of Finance, which were both recently replaced by Prime Minister Boc.

Through the Kyoto protocol, Romania has made the commitment to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by 8% compared to 1989 levels, between 2008 and 2012.

Since many industrial plants have closed down many production capacities, most of which were sources of pollution, Romania is now among the countries which have a surplus of greenhouse emission certificates.

Based on the Kyoto protocol, each country has the right to a certain volume of carbon dioxide emissions. If the country"s emissions are below the allocated quota, the country in question can sell the emission certificates to other countries that have exceeded their quota.

Out of its allocated quota for the 2008-2012 period, Romania has a surplus of 300 million certificates available.

The available certificates can be sold by Romania to another country, even through direct negotiation.

It is precisely in the circuit for the sale of Romania"s carbon emission certificates to other countries that the world"s energy giants are looking to insert themselves as intermediaries.

According to our sources, "Gazprom" has already been testing the market since last year, and it intends to get involved in the deal through its London-based branch.

The latter opened a company in Bucharest - "Gazprom Marketing & Trading", which the Russian giant has been using to buy certificates on the open market, from companies strapped for cash.

Other companies interested in securing the contract with the state include Japanese companies "Mitsubishi", "Nomura" and "Sumitomo", as well as Swiss company "Vitol".

After lengthy discussions, the Boc government issued an emergency ordinance in the spring of 2010, precisely to allow the sale of the available certificate, even though there are specialists saying that Romania should keep these certificates to allow the development of the domestic industry, even though the temptation of bringing 1 billion Euros of revenues to the state budget is hard to ignore, in this period of crisis.

Some other experts that we talked to, who did not wish to be officially quoted, claim that Romania could make more than 2 billion Euros from the sale of these certificates, depending on the moment of their sale, but they added that the money should then be used to support the energy industry.

Given the fact that last year, on the international market, the price for a certificate ranged from 4 to 8 Euros, it would seem that the sale of the available inventory of more than 300 million certificates could bring almost 2.5 billion Euros in revenue.

That sounds like quite a temptation for a government in crisis.