LONDON: British prompt gas prices remained firm on Tuesday morning as North Sea outages kept the system tight despite low demand.Gas prices for delivery the next day were trading at 65.5 pence per therm at 0800 GMT on Tuesday morning, up 0.50 pence from its opening value and 0.15 higher than on Monday morning.
Prices for delivery within the day were trading around 65.60 pence, up 0.10 pence since first trades on Tuesday.
Traders said that the firm prices came despite low demand and were a result of ongoing North Sea maintenance that was keeping the system tight during a time when utilities were trying to refill their gas storage facilities.
"Our storage sites are normally almost full by this time of the year so prices usually drop in the low demand summer season, but because winter lasted until April this year, we're behind schedule in refilling our stocks so any excess gas is pumped into storage, and prices don't drop," one trader with a utility said.
"The maintenance at Forties Charlie and Unity Riser is due to end today which could lead to increased flows into St. Fergus terminals," analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon said, although a Norwegian outage at the Kvitebjoern field could offset these supply gains.
UK Gas demand was expected to be 144.3 million cubic metres (mcm) on Tuesday, almost 42 percent below the seasonal norm, according to National Grid.
With flows seen at 148 mcm, the system would be 3.7 mcm oversupplied, leaving some room for storage injections.
Britain's gas storage sites are currently filled to an average of just over 75 percent, over 15 percentage points below this time last year, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe.
In Britain's power market, prices for baseload (24 hours) delivery the next day were trading around 47.55 pounds ($72.89)per megawatt-hour (MWh), down around a pound since Monday morning.
Traders said that the price drop was a result of improved nuclear power plant availability as well as higher wind power generation.
Britain's Met Office said that temperatures on Wednesday would reach a maximum of 24 degrees Celsius, and that "a northeasterly breeze will develop."
All of Britain's nuclear power units were generating power again on Monday following the restart of the 620-megawatt (MW) Hartlepool 1 unit.
Total nuclear output stood at almost 9,000 MW on Tuesday morning, according to National Grid.
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