EU carbon allowances for December rose 0.3 percent to 15.64 euros ($20.84) a metric ton on London’s European Climate Exchange as of 3:12 p.m. They rose as much as 1.2 percent to 15.78 euros, the highest intraday price since Sept. 8, on speculation that EU utilities may be short of permits for the phase after 2012. The contract is up 22 percent this month.

“It probably won’t reverse in the next month or so because of the volumes behind it,” Dennis Mignon, a trader with First Climate in Bad Vilbel, Germany, said today by phone. The contract had a 12-day rolling average volume of 18.5 million tons as of yesterday, 78 percent higher than the 10.4 million tons on March 26.

Factories with spare allowances aren’t necessarily going to sell even as CO2 prices rise, Mignon said. “Fifteen euros isn’t going to be that much more appealing than 13 euros, given the fact that we traded at 20 in 2008.”

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Source: Bloomberg/SFGate http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/26/bloomberg1376-L1JI6U0UQVI9-1.DTL