Dive Brief:

• Falling natural gas prices have coincided with an almost 40% rise in Uranium prices, Bloomberg reports, forcing some nuclear plants to consider shutting down.
• The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects the Henry Hub natural gas spot price to average $3.97/MMBtu this winter compared with $4.53/MMBtu last year, in part because of significnatly higher production.
• Nuclear plant outages during October 2014 averaged 9% more than in October 2013, EIA said, attributing the rise to plants refueling and performing maintenance.

Dive Insight:

With two nuclear facilities about to come back online in Japan and tightening uranium supplies, Bloomberg reports operators are stockpiling uranium and prices are rising — meaning nuclear facilities are feeling the squeeze. 

In November, TradeTech said its Uranium Spot Price Indicator had climbed nearly 16% in a week to $42.25 per pound of U3O8, the highest value since the end of March last year. "Buying interest from utilities, traders, and financial entities has fueled a steady increase in the spot market price," the market consultant said.

Looking ahead to next year, EIA expects natural gas' share of electricity generation will rise to 27.6% and coal's fuel share will decline to 38.8%. Within the Northeast region, the share of total generation supplied by nuclear power falls from 35.1% in 2014 to 33.2% in 2015.