European carbon prices were flat on Thursday, a day after settling at their lowest level in a month.

The front-year contract settled up a cent at €7.22. Volume was again on the light side at around 11.3 million units traded on the ICE Dec-15s.

EUAs were supported by firmer German power prices and after the EU’s allowance auction cleared at market.

The bloc earlier in the day sold 2.92 million spot units for €7.20 each, in an auction that attracted bids worth a total 7.1 million units.

Trading has been quiet this week as many traders were attending the Carbon Expo conference in Barcelona, which ended today.

But with few policy developments on the horizon and amid softer German clean dark spreads, market watchers note participants have fewer reasons to buy carbon in the near term, though analysts expect prices to gradually increase over the second half of 2015.

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