UK GAS-Prices rise amid zero Langeled flows, upcoming outages

LONDON: British wholesale gas prices rose on Friday morning, likely buoyed by upcoming planned outages in Britain's North Sea and Norway and as Langeled flows were at zero.

The day-ahead contract rose by 0.60 pence to 12.60 pence per therm by 0837 GMT.

The weekend contract was 0.50 pence higher at 12.00 p/therm.

Upcoming maintenance at UK Continental Shelf fields and terminals and Norway outages could be helping to lift prices, traders said.

The Langeled pipeline from Norway still has zero flows.

However, the system was around 5 million cubic metres (mcm) oversupplied, with demand forecast at 167 mcm and flows at 172 mcm/day, National Grid data shows.

Wind generation is providing over 34pc of UK power demand.

Peak wind generation is forecast at 13.1 gigawatts (GW) on Friday and the next day, out of total metered capacity of around 15 GW, Elexon data shows.

Strong wind output typically reduces gas-for-power demand.

"After a breakdown of the very dry pattern, high pressure conditions are set to build up once again from eastern Europe and Scandinavia, potentially extending towards western Europe too," said Giacomo Masato at Marex Spectron.

"If the above verifies, a dry and windless pattern could re-emerge and potentially push the demand for gas higher."

Consultancy Energy Aspects forecasts that total European storage injections will be around 3.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) in the two weeks to June 12, narrowing the y/y storage surplus to 9.7 bcm by mid-June.

"While liquefied natural gas (LNG) send-out is likely to remain strong for the coming weeks, our most recent global balances show that LNG imports into Europe will fall by some 4.4 bcm y/y over Q3 20," it said.

The UK month-ahead price edged up by 0.08 pence to 12.60 p/therm.

The day-ahead gas price at the Dutch TTF hub was up 0.18 euro at 4.65 euros per megawatt hour.