The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative sold 62% of the carbon dioxide allowances being offered at Wednesday's quarterly auction at the reserve price of $1.93/st, the cap-and-trade program's administrator said Friday.

It was the seventh straight auction where buyers bought fewer CO2 allowances than were offered. The auction sold 21.559 million CO2 allowances out of about 34.844 million CO2 allowances being offered by the nine states.

Bids ranged from $1.93 to $5.36 per CO2 allowance. The clearing price was $1.93, the lowest price allowed.

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Wednesday marked the debut auction of the second compliance period, which runs from January 1 through the end of 2014.

The cap is fixed at 165 million st per year until 2015. Emissions figures have been significantly below the cap since the program began in 2009. That surplus has caused CO2 allowances to go unsold and for auctions to clear at the minimum reserve price.

RGGI auctions have raised $993.752 million to date. Compliance entities or their affiliates represented 99% of the CO2 allowances purchased at Wednesday's auction.

The cap-and-trade program requires the owners of power plants to hold CO2 allowances equal to their emissions. A single CO2 allowance equals 1 st of emissions.

Participating states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont

The next RGGI auction is scheduled for June 6.

--Geoffrey Craig, geoffrey_craig@platts.com

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