U.S. 12 Month Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USL) was designed to mitigate the effects of contango by taking a weighted blend of 12 futures contracts across the calendar as opposed to simply owning front month oil futures and then rolling them once per month (as in USO). Since inception in late 2007, USL is down 32.39% versus USO's return of -57.32% during the same time period, so it is evident that USL's methodology provides some alleviation of the negative effects of contango.