The big story in oil markets this week has been the escalating tension between the United States and Saudi Arabia, with many analysts suggesting that crude prices could head even higher if the fued reaches a boiling point. (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) – U.S. nuclear plant outages were relatively low throughout the summer, but spiked last month. Nuclear plants tend to go offline for maintenance, often during spring and winter months and often to coincide with the refueling cycle, but the 14.5 GW that went offline in September was larger and earlier than usual. – The temporary shutdown of a plant related to Hurricane Florence magnified the disruptions. – The outages put more pressure on natural gas to pick up the slack, and with natural gas inventories already at their lowest levels since 2005 heading into winter, the nuclear outages helped […]