RWE hedges power prices up to 2022 and CO2 costs into mid-2020s

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German utility RWE <RWEG.DE>, one of Europe's biggest power generators, has sold much of its output over the next few years, it said on Thursday.

The company has also covered much of its carbon emissions rights requirements through accompanying financial hedges to protect itself against margin risks.

Wholesale traders and analysts use hedge rates to track earnings and to assess future volumes tied up with counterparties and the value of forward production.

More than 90% of German nuclear and brown coal production for 2020, 2021 and 2022 was sold ahead at 32 euros, 40 euros and 48 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) respectively, RWE said in slides presented with its 2019 earnings.

RWE said the numbers factored in the impact from agreed phasing out of brown coal plants after deals with the Berlin government aimed at exiting coal by 2038.

On carbon, RWE's average hedged power price for 2020 is expected to be equal to an average hedged price of about 5 euros a tonne. The average for 2021 was 8 euros and for 2022 it was 16 euros, the company said.

Eikon Refinitiv German baseload power of all generation types for delivery in 2021 traded at 39.50 euros/MWh at 0800 GMT on the European wholesale market <TRDEBYZ1> on Thursday and at 42.80 euros <TRDEBYZ2> for 2022.[EL/DE]

Carbon emissions for December 2020 expiry dropped 2.2% to 23.40 euros a tonne <CFI2Zc1>.

Rival Uniper <UN01.DE> gave some details of its hydropower hedging volumes on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by David Goodman)