Nordic power demand may not recover to pre-recession levels until 2014, Finnish utility Fortum said July 19. Temperature-corrected power consumption in the Nordic countries was 4% down on 2008 levels, Fortum said, and "increasing global economic uncertainty and Europe's sovereign-debt crisis" had weakened the outlook for economic recovery. The company's own fortunes rested on future wholesale prices, themselves a function of supply and demand, fuel cost and carbon cost. While oil, coal and gas prices had dipped a few percentage points during Q2 2011, CO2 prices "decreased by over 20% at the end of the quarter due to financial uncertainty in Europe and energy-efficiency proposals in the EU," Fortum said. These effects, as well as improved reservoir levels, had seen Nordic forward prices dip 5% through the quarter.
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