AS OF 15 October 2026, 17:30, MDT (Calgary, UTC-6). Futures marks are today's close, marked off the most liquid futures contract by open interest, Dec26. Auction clearings and regulator prints carry their own dates, which are stated on each. Currency is named on every price.
Order: Washington runs first this edition on the reserve-auction deadline; the rest follow the tape's order.
Mark: USD 39.00 (2026-10-15, Most liquid futures settlement), -0.6% day over day. Primary print USD 39.50 (2026-09-02, Auction #15 settlement).
What moved: The Dec26 mark settled -0.6%. APCR Auction #8 offered 172,348 allowances at a bid-to-allowance ratio of 0.00 (Ecology publication 26-14-073): the reserve drew no bids and sold nothing.
Why: The reserve tiers, Tier 1 $65.26 and Tier 2 $83.84 (Ecology publication 26-14-072), sit far above both the Dec26 mark and Auction #15's $ 39.50 (Ecology publication 26-14-063), so reserve supply is priced out of the money.
Desk view: Near term up in physical and spot terms into the annual compliance deadline on the first business day of November, when thirty percent of last year's covered emissions must be surrendered, not the December futures contract the tape marks. Next year down, because linkage pools Washington into a combined balance with California-Quebec that is looser than its own. The desk holds no bank or stock series for Washington; what sits beside the -9.4 Mt one-year flow for 2027 is the auction record, which is not a stock. Why the desk differs from the curve: near term, the desk expects Washington prices higher into compliance - in physical terms, into the annual compliance deadline on the first business day of November, when thirty percent of last year's covered emissions must be surrendered, not in the December contract the tape marks - in line with the tightening standalone curve; for next year the desk expects them lower, because once linkage takes effect Washington is pooled into a combined balance with California-Quebec that is looser than its own, which the standalone curve does not measure.
Mark: EUR 85.84 (2026-10-15, Most liquid futures settlement), -1.5% day over day. Primary print EUR 85.84 (2026-10-15, Latest EEX auction clearing price), level with the mark.
What moved: Settled -1.5%, giving back part of the move that took the complex to its strongest level since January earlier this week.
Why: Carbon Pulse reported European allowance prices sliding on Thursday morning toward a technical support level amid gloomy industrial production data and falling gas and power prices. Leaders meet at the European Council today and tomorrow, with an Italian-Czech plan to suspend the Market Stability Reserve transfer hanging over the meeting.
Desk view: Constructive on the curve rather than the session: the rows carry surplus narrowing to a deficit of -28.9 Mt in 2029, against a stock of 1,023,494,202 allowances on the total number of allowances in circulation (TNAC) as of 2025-12-31, with the reserve in intake at that level. The Council's September MSR mandate is a mandate for trilogue, not law, and the rows carry the Directive as it stands.
Mark: GBP 63.52 (2026-10-15, Most liquid futures settlement), -2.4% day over day. Primary print GBP 60.17 (2026-09-30, Official monthly average UKA settlement price (Dec futures), CCM table), a monthly average and a different basis from the settle.
What moved: Settled -2.4%, the largest move on the tape. No driver identified.
Why: The context, not a cause: UKAs have traded the linkage headline since a POLITICO report of 7 October, relayed by Carbon Pulse, that a UK-EU ETS link had been agreed, and the Prime Minister told the Commons on 12 October that the summit falls on 20 November, announcing no agreement. The Dec26 differential to EUA in common currency is -12.3%.
Desk view: Deficit rows through the horizon; no holdings or bank series is published for the UK ETS, so what sits beside the flow is the Authority's monthly CCM average, which is a price and not a stock.
Mark: USD 32.31 (2026-10-15, Most liquid futures settlement), -0.4% day over day. Primary print USD 32.48 (2026-08-19, Auction 48, current-vintage settlement price).
What moved: Settled -0.4%, inside the noise band, with no North American catalyst today.
Why: The live driver remains structural: 118.3 Mt removed from the 2027-2030 budgets under the amended Table 6-2, effective from September 1, 2026.
Desk view: Constructive into 2027. The deficit flow of -27.0 Mt for 2027 sits against 1,179,243,461 allowances in holdings in General and Compliance accounts, compliance obligation not netted as of 2026-07-02, so the bank, not the single year, paces the repricing. Balance rows here are estimated from 2024 onward.
Mark: USD 39.84 (2026-10-15, Most liquid futures settlement), -0.4% day over day. Primary print USD 37.65 (2026-09-09, Auction 73 clearing price), with the mark 5.8% against it.
What moved: Settled -0.4%. The NJ BPU and NJDEP held their joint public hearing on RGGI allowance prices under Docket QO26090531 today; no result is registered.
Why: Nothing in the session reprices the cap. The standing fact behind the spread to the September clearing is that the CCR was triggered at Auction 71 at the $18.22 trigger price and fully depleted (Potomac Economics, publication Auction_71_Market_Monitor_Report).
Desk view: Long the drawdown. The 2027 flow of -9.8 Mt (2027) million short tons runs against 55,000,000 short tons of surplus allowances in circulation as of 2026-06-30, so pace matters more than any single compliance year. The PJM Operating Agreement and RAA filings and the MISO manual updates detected in early October are grid-tariff churn, monitored and not carried as compliance-relevant.
Last print: NZD 52.00 (2026-10-02, NZU secondary spot (open-licensed scrape of broker marks)), 13 days old against a 7-day cadence, so no delta is quoted and this is a last print rather than a mark.
What moved: Nothing on our tape today.
Why: The September auction failed: 10,400,000 units unsold, rolled to the December auction (New Zealand Government ETS auction platform (etsauctions.govt.nz), publication NZ-ETS-Auction-Results-September-2026), the third 2026 auction to fail.
Desk view: The rows run the zero-auction-supply stress case, deficit -33.8 Mt in 2027; the desk treats the no-clear outcome as the base case for December and holds no stock series for this market.
Mark: CA LCFS USD 68.30 (week of 2026-10-05, CARB weekly volume-weighted average credit transfer price, posted 2026-10-13), against USD 82.18 the week of 2026-09-28, -16.9%. BC: CAD 213.96 (2026-09-30, September 2026 avg transfer price).
What moved: The weekly LCFS average fell hard week on week, with CARB's reported range running USD 54.40 to USD 100.00. RIN prints on our tape are 52 days old and support no statement about today.
Why: The renewable-diesel margin channel, diesel less feedstock, is the credit-supply decision variable: Brent 125.44 $/BBL, WTI 96.24 $/BBL and Gulf Coast ULSD 4.565 $/GAL, EIA spot, 2026-10-06. Direction only, no number claimed.
Desk view: Neutral on the weekly print and anchored on the quarterly balance: credits 6.93 against deficits 9.77 million MT in 2026Q1, bank 36.86 million MT, which is not current.
ACCU, Alberta TIER and BC LCFS carry no fresh mark today and stand down with their last prints unchanged. RECs: Connecticut's RPS annual compliance filing was due to PURA today, with no result registered and no price view taken. VCM: not covered this edition.
The European Council concludes tomorrow, with the Italian-Czech MSR initiative the item that touches EUA supply. The CFTC Commitments of Traders release lands tomorrow and is the first clean read on carbon-complex positioning through this week's reversal. Washington's application window for the November reserve auction closes early next week (ecology.wa.gov publication Ecology-2026-Reserve-Auction-Potential-Dates-2514101), and the APCR #8 outcome above frames what a repeat offering can realistically draw. CARB's weekly LCFS credit transfer report comes on its weekly cadence next week, with the 2026Q2 quarterly data summary expected late this month. Outstanding to the reader: the NJ BPU and NJDEP hearing record, carried until it is registered.
Corrections & notes