LONDON, (Bloomberg) – Louis Redshaw, Barclays Plc (BARC)’s head of carbon, coal and iron ore trading, resigned from the London- based bank, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Redshaw, 40, left the company yesterday, one of the people said. Both people declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. The trader has bought and sold emissions permits at Barclays since 2004. Jon Laycock, a spokesman for the bank in London, declined to comment on the departure when reached today by phone.
Emission allowances have dropped 57 percent in the past year and plunged to a record on April 17 after the European Parliament voted against a plan to temporarily cut supply and reduce a record glut in the 54 billion-euro ($71 billion) market. The program was started in 2005 to help protect the climate by reducing output of greenhouse gases.
“Louis has been a superstar in the market, having been there since the early days of the European Union emissions trading system,” Dirk Forrister, president of the International Emissions Trading Association in Geneva, said today by phone from London. His departure is “symbolic of a concern that we’ve been voicing to policy makers for a long time to sort things out,” he said.
Europe’s emissions trading system is the bloc’s main tool in meeting greenhouse gas-reduction targets, which it does by issuing companies with tradable permits that they must surrender to cover their carbon output. The euro area’s recession cut demand, pushing the surplus of allowances and United Nations credits to an estimated 1.9 billion tons in the five years through 2012, or about a year’s emissions from factories, power stations and airlines, Bloomberg New Energy Finance data show.
“Deep Bench”
Redshaw has also worked at Electricite de France SA and Enron Corp, the world’s biggest energy trader until it filed for bankruptcy in December 2001.
“We’re seeing a lot of talent move on from the carbon market,” Forrister said. “It’s a real loss.”
Trevor Sikorski, Barclays’s head of carbon, natural gas and coal research, also left the bank in February.
The company is one of the world’s largest emissions traders, “with a deep bench,” Laycock said today by e-mail.
The bank has traded carbon since 2004 and has also actively facilitated the trading of secondary market Certified Emission Reductions since 2006, he said.
EU allowances for December rose 2.7 percent today to 3.10 euros a metric ton on at 1:17 p.m. on ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. They’ve plunged 90 percent from a high of 31 euros in 2006.
