NEI's Energy Markets Report - January 7-January 11, 2008

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

Electricity peak prices decreased $10-50/MWh at the Eastern hubs as temperatures returned to normal. The Western hubs increased only $1-2/MWh (Platts, see pages 1 and 3).

Gas prices at the Henry Hub rose $0.23 to $7.75/MMBtu. The Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) last week began providing interim service with a capacity of about 1.4 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day to a gas delivery point in Kansas. By 2009, the proposed 1,679-mile gas pipeline is expected to reach Ohio from Colorado and will be the first pipeline to directly supply gas from the West to the Eastern markets (EIA and REX LLC, see pages 1 and 3).

Estimated nuclear plant availability remained at 94 percent last week. River Bend 1 began a refueling outage. Dresden 3 shut down for maintenance on a steam line after receiving low steam pressure indications (Platts and NRC, see pages 2 and 4).

Crude oil prices rose $2.78 from the previous week to $98.90/barrel. This is the highest weekly price over the past year. Ten of the past 11 weeks have seen oil prices above $90/barrel (EIA, see pages 1 and 3).

Uranium spot prices were $89.50 and $89.00/ lb U3O8 last week according to UxConsulting and TradeTech. Over the past 11 weeks uranium spot prices have remained between $89 and $93/lb U3O8 (see pages 1 and 3).

Last week’s spark spread beat the spark spread from three weeks as the largest negative spark spread over the past 52 weeks. The negative spread was $9.98/MWh last week versus $9.75/MWh three weeks ago (see page 1).

For the report click here. It is also located on NEI's Financial Center webpage.