NEI Energy Markets Report (September 10-14, 2012)

Here's a snippet of what went on in the energy markets last week:

Electricity peak prices were mostly down last week. Prices at ERCOT-Houston, PJM West, and the Northeast hubs fell substantially, dropping $27, $20, and $11/MWh, respectively. Prices at Palo Verde and the Southwest hubs rose marginally, in the face of a heat wave. “Largely defying a typical pre-weekend tick higher, power prices for Sept. 17 delivery moved in both directions across the U.S. on Friday, Sept. 14, but with the bias mostly lower as traders focused on softer gas prices and mild fall weather rather than mounting outages or the return of business-related demand early in the next week. … The cost of gas could have heightened influence at the power markets in the coming weeks as large baseload reactors drop offline for routine seasonal maintenance. In total, almost 39,000 MW of supply is already offline nationwide, up about 4,000 MW on the day, according to data from IIR Energy. By fuel, there are more than 14,000 MW of coal-fired outages, more than 5,700 MW of gas-fired outages and almost 12,800 MW of nuclear outages” (SNL Energy’s Power
Daily – 9/17/12).

…

Uranium spot prices fell to $47/lb U3O8 last week. “Demand is currently weak in the spot market, on the part of all groups – traders, financials, utilities, and producers. The relative lack of demand on the part of traders is somewhat derivative of the fact that demand is weak in the mid-term market, and hence traders do not have much motivation to delve into the spot market to buy and hold to meet mid-term needs. A non-U.S. utility recently entered the mid-term market, but beyond this, there is not much demand. Price is falling to a point where it may spur more interest on the part of utilities, but it still may have some way to go to stimulate any notable demand by this group” (Ux Consulting’s Ux Weekly – 9/17/12).

For more of the report click here.

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