Warm Weather Drives Down Oil

Shares of Halliburton were gaining 0.7% recently.

The energy exchange-traded funds were falling in line with futures prices, with the U.S. Oil(USO Quote) ETF and the iPath Goldman Sachs Crude Oil Index(OIL Quote) ETF both off about 1.5% in recent action.

Major oil concerns were mixed. Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote) was barely changed and Chevron (CVX Quote) was ahead by 1%, while ConocoPhillips (COP Quote) slipped 0.5% and BP (BP Quote) gave up 0.3%.

Elsewhere in energy-related matters, Francisco Blanch, a commodity strategist at Merrill in London, notes that emissions credits prices have been falling and "volatility has surged to extreme levels."

"[An] initial overallocation of permits, warmer and wetter-than-normal weather conditions, together with sharply lower U.K. natural gas prices, have contributed to exacerbate the selloff," he states in a recent report

The credits give holders the right to emit a given tonnage of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, generally as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas.

The overall price for credits has plunged 94% since last September, Blanch says.