LONDON: Natural gas prices in Britain fell on Monday morning as piped Norwegian supply helped offset the shutdown of Emden EMS and returning output after British North Sea maintenance eased supply concerns.
Prices for within-day delivery were trading at 42.80 pence per therm at 0926 GMT, down 2.2 pence since their last settlement. Prices for delivery on Tuesday were down 0.7 pence at 43.25 pence.
The market was broadly balanced with supply flows forecast at 149.4 million cubic metres (mcm) per day and demand seen at 148.5 mcm, National Grid data showed.
Despite temperatures slipping below seasonal averages, demand remained well below norms of about 172 mcm, the data showed.
Helping offset Saturday's shutdown for maintenance of the Emden Europipe metering station (EMS) were higher flows via the Langeled pipeline from Norway which rose to 27 mcm from 18 mcm on Friday.
Analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon noted this also helped alleviate tightness in supply from the British North Sea.
Following the end of scheduled maintenance on BP's Forties pipeline and the CATS Riser platform on Friday, at least one large gas field was not producing early on Monday.
Britain's Elgin condensate gas field in the North Sea will restart production in the afternoon following longer-than-planned maintenance, a spokesman for Total Exploration & Production said.
Analysts said prices eased after large gains on Friday as returning UK flows reduced concerns about undersupply.
"UK Continental Shelf supplies are ...not fully back up to pre-maintenance levels, with higher expected flows for the coming week reducing supply risk," a trader said.
Further along the curve, gas for September delivery was down 1.05 pence at 43.75 pence per therm and the winter contract was down 1.11 pence at 62.25 pence per therm.
In Britain's power market, below-average temperatures prices spurred sharp gains, with power for day-ahead baseload delivery was trading at 39.10 pounds per megawatt hour, up 1.97 pounds or more than 5 percent.
Britain has almost 3,000 MW in nuclear capacity off line, or around a third of its of total.
Wind power output in Britain was up on Monday, topping 3,800 megawatts from around 1,000 MW on Friday, National Grid data showed.
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