British Energy have played their cards close to their chest. They have not announced any further news on the boiler cracking problem which has seen 6 of their units run at half load. They have fired their director of nuclear programmes and this is probably because they felt someone had to go. The shares have fallen 5% and the equities market has reacted badly to the lack of output coming from BE. The power market in contrast has not responded at all, and this is no surprise as most will have priced in the fact that BE have never been correct about any statement on plant reliability in their history. They are always late in coming back, furthermore they tend to be over cautious and so if they are running at half load this is likely to be less of an issue than first perceived.

So if money were no object and risk was fully accounted for, one would recommend that buying British Energy shares looks like a wise punt, and not getting too long in the power market.

Another aside is that recent US natural gas stocks are at record highs oil prices have fallen and this will put further pressure on the European and UK gas prices for this Winter and Summer 07 do not be surprised if in the next week we see Summer 07 and Winter 07 fall on the back of gas and oil prices.