UK GAS-Prices rise on lower Norwegian flows due to outages

British and European wholesale gas prices rose on Tuesday morning as heavy maintenance affected Norwegian supply.

The day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 rose by 5.75 pence to 160.75 pence per therm by 0731 GMT.

The October price TRGBNBPMV1 rose by 0.82 pence to 154.20 p/therm.

Flows from Norway to Britain have fallen to 43 million cubic metres (mcm) due to maintenance outages. NSEA/AM

“Today will be the most impacted day for planned capacity constraints for the remainder of the year,” said Wayne Bryan, head of gas research at Refinitiv.

Arrivals of liquefied natural gas to north-west Europe also remain weak.

Britain’s gas system was under-supplied by around 11 mcm, with demand forecast at 152 mcm and flows at 141 mcm/day, National Grid data showed.

Generally, global gas markets remain bullish.

“We are witnessing record natural gas prices and we’re still not yet in the winter period,” said analysts at Bernstein.

Last year’s August storage levels were 23 billion cubic metres higher than this year’s, which helped to prevent price spikes in the winter.

“If we get a colder than average winter this year and we witness any supply disruptions at all, then much higher gas prices will materialize given 45% of European natural gas demand is residential and heating,” the analysts added.

The Dutch TTF October contract TRNLTTFMc1 declined by 1.00 euro to 61.00 euros per megawatt hour, having hit an intra-day high of 65.00 euros in earlier trade.

The benchmark Dec-21 EU carbon contract CFI2Zc1 was up by 0.41 euro at 61.48 euros a tonne.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nina Chestney)