EU carbon prices rose slightly on Wednesday to briefly hit their highest this week, reaching €8.10 in a thinly traded and relatively stable session.

The benchmark Dec-15 EUA futures settled up 4 cents at €8.07 on ICE Futures Europe on turnover of 8 million units.

The contract traded in a €7.99-8.10 range, above the previous session’s €7.95-8.04 band but off last week’s 2.5-year peak of €8.15.

Activity was very muted until Poland’s mid-afternoon sale of 2.854m spot EUAs.

The sale cleared on EEX two cents below market at €8.03 and secondary market prices were little changed in the immediate aftermath.

With a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.62, the sale was just shy of Tuesday’s month-high subscription rate and continued the week’s pattern of high demand ahead of next week’s halving of auction volume.

Meanwhile, coal prices also rose slightly, which meant German clean dark spreads for 2017 and 2018 narrowed slightly and are now at their lowest levels for a week, weakening the incentive for coal-fired utilities to sell electricity forwards and buy the corresponding carbon.

By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com