European carbon eased on Thursday as prices failed to break through a one-month high of €8.67 for a second straight day.

The Dec-15 futures on ICE settled down 4 cents at €8.58 on volume of around 11 million units traded.

The slide came despite an EU auction that attracted modest interest.

A group of 25 member states sold 2.918 million spot EUAs for €8.61 each, in a sale that cleared in line with secondary market prices at the time the auction closed.

It attracted bids worth a total 9.56 million units.

Germany will sell 3.2 million allowances on Friday in its weekly auction.

Meanwhile, ARA coal prices rose, with the effect on dark spreads amplified by a weaker euro.

However, it was offset by stronger German baseload power prices, resulting in the clean darks ending flat compared to Wednesday.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com