GAS Prices rise due to undersupply, lower Norway flows

• Gas prices rose on Friday morning as the system was undersupplied due to reduced Norwegian flows and injections into storage.
• "The Rough field will be on standby to produce until further notice, due to prevailing gas market conditions,"

LONDON: British wholesale gas prices rose on Friday morning as the system was undersupplied due to reduced Norwegian flows and injections into storage.

Day-ahead gas rose by 2.75 pence to 33.75 p/therm by 0814 GMT, while the weekend contract was up 3.00 p at 33.00 p/therm.

The November gas contract rose by 0.60 p to 43.50 p/therm.

The system is undersupplied by 13 million cubic metres (mcm), with demand forecast at 192 mcm and flows at nearly 179 mcm/day, National Grid data shows.

Flows from Norway continued to fall while plans to inject gas into storage, rather than send into the system for consumption, remained flat.

There is also reduced send-out from the Isle of Grain liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Meanwhile, production at the Rough field in Britain, which has been shut down for most of the summer, will return a month later than previously scheduled on Nov. 1.

"The Rough field will be on standby to produce until further notice, due to prevailing gas market conditions," the operator said on Thursday.

Despite Friday's spike in prices, low storage injection demand and high LNG supply are expected to weigh on prices for the rest of the month, consultancy Energy Aspects said.

Norwegian flows may not ramp up as they usually do in early October because demand in Europe is muted; low prompt prices may discourage production from fields such as Troll and Oseberg, it said.

"Unless the weather turns unusually cold, which is not the prediction of 15-day forecasts, stronger LNG supply year-on-year and scant storage injection demand will continue to leave the supply-demand balance loose, pushing prompt prices lower to encourage more power sector gas burn," Energy Aspects added.

Contracts at the Dutch TTF hub also rose. The day-ahead  was up 1.00 euro at 13.50 euros per megawatt hour (MWh).

The Dutch month-ahead gas contract, a benchmark for LNG prices as well as European gas, was 0.25 euro higher at 16.40 euros/MWh.

The benchmark Dec-19 EU carbon contract was 0.17 euro higher at 23.41 euros a tonne.