IFFCO sells CO2 offsets to Spanish fund

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Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative, the country's biggest fertiliser producer, has sold UN carbon credits worth 40 million rupees (USD 880,000) to a Spanish fund, a company statement said on Wednesday.

IFFCO said it sold 80,636 Certified Emission Reduction offsets to FC2E, a Spanish carbon fund, for about USD 10.90 each.

The offsets were generated from a project that switched from using carbon-intensive fuels to natural gas.

The statement said IFFCO has so far cut CO2 emissions by more than 1.4 million tonnes by switching to cleaner fuels, reducing steam consumption at its ammonia plants and capturing carbon dioxide from some of its operations.

India is the second top source of CERs under the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism.

Under the CDM, governments and companies in rich nations can invest in clean-energy projects such as wind farms and small hydro plants and earn CERs in return to meet emissions cut targets or to sell for profit.

According to U.N. data, India had 491 CDM projects registered as of March 10. In total, 77 million CERs have been issued to Indian projects, representing nearly 20 percent of all the CERs issued globally to date.