LONDON: Prompt natural gas prices in Britain eased on Thursday, under pressure from increased Norwegian flows after several fields returned from outages faster than had been expected.
National Grid data showed the system was around 14 million cubic metres (mcm) oversupplied, with supply flows at around 304 mcm and demand forecast at around 290 mcm.
Flows from Norway to Britain rose by 33 mcm to 88 mcm.
Gas prices for within-day delivery were down 4.5 percent at 47.50 pence per therm at 0936 GMT.
Flows from Norway's Langeled pipeline were 51 mcm, up from 22 mcm on Wednesday.
The rise in imports helped to offset reduced domestic flows, with unplanned outages affecting Britain's North Sea J-Block natural gas field, along with the Teesside Gas Processing Plant.
"On the whole, gas prices are being pushed down today by the return of Norwegian gas as the impact of Norwegian production outages eases," said Oliver Sanderson, an analyst at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon.
Meteorologists forecast temperatures dropping to below seasonal norms from Friday through to next week, offering some support to later-dated gas contracts.
"The potential for higher demand on the arrival of colder temperatures in the coming weeks is, however, limiting losses on other prompt contracts and into the front month," said Marcel Boonaert, head of gas trading at Wingas UK.
Prices for February delivery were down 1.8 percent at 47.60 pence per therm.
In the Netherlands, the day-ahead gas price at the TTF hub was down 0.1 euros lower at 20.00 euros per megawatt-hour.
The benchmark European Union carbon price dipped 0.06 euros to 7.19 euros per tonne on ICE Futures Europe.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.