French power market points to lack of information as prices surge further

French power market participants are being forced to trade this winter amid “a feeling that we don’t have enough information”, one trader said on Tuesday.

The comments came in the wake of another big leap on the near-curve in the first hours of Tuesday’s trading session in response to nuclear authority ASN’s comments in the French press about not having received sufficient information from EDF to allow it to proceed with inspecting the company’s atomic power plants.

The Cal ’17 Baseload contract reached a new high of €50.00/MWh within the session, up by €2.00/MWh since the start of the day.

New highs were also seen on the Q1 ’17 and January ’17 Baseload contracts, which traded at €96.75/MWh and €138.50/MWh, up by €9.25/MWh or 11%, and €12.75/MWh or 10%, compared to the previous day’s closing assessments.

Despite having to deal with a lack of precise information, “it’s a good time to speculate and I’m not personally holding on to positions for too long,” one southern European utility-based trader said, who attributed the gains on Cal ‘17 to nuclear issues only.

He added: “You have to look at the [nuclear availability schedules] on a daily basis now. … France is a small market and it can go in many directions.”

An ASN spokeswoman said the authority expected operator EDF to submit additional safety documentation for the restart of seven nuclear reactors by mid-November and that it would take one month to analyse the results.

Impact

The ASN spokeswoman declined to comment on the impact on reactors Civaux 2, Dampierre 3 and St Laurent 2, which are still scheduled to return to the grid on 27 and 30 November. The reactors have a combined capacity of 3.3GW and are among several reactors currently offline due to inspections on the steel composition of the steam generators.

Maintenance works of reactors Bugey 4, Gravelines 2, and Tricastin 1 and 3 were, on 3 November, all extended to the end of the year. This was the result of communications with ASN after EDF submitted a technical report on 7 October, EDF said at the time.

In addition to the seven reactors that were already offline, ASN announced on 18 October that it would require EDF to begin tests on five additional reactors within the next three months. The outage of Tricastin 4 began on 22 October and was also extended to the end of the year on 3 November, while the remaining four reactors are scheduled to go offline on 10, 17 and 23 December.

A total of 18 reactors have been or will be subject to additional controls on the carbon content in the steel of steam generators. Six of these reactors have already returned to the grid after inspections.

EDF had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication. herman.moestue@icis.com and joachim.moxon@icis.com