Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were mixed early on Wednesday as an outage in Norway curbed supplies, while milder temperatures forecast towards the end of the month should increase availability.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub was up 1.15 euros at 47.50 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $14.37 /mmbtu, by 0912 GMT LSEG data showed.
The Dutch March contract was down 0.03 euros at 47.40 euros/MWh.
In Britain, the month-ahead contract fell 1.2 pence to 117.7 p/therm.
Norway’s Gassco late on Tuesday updated plans for its Kollsnes processing plant, saying the maintenance was expected to last until Jan. 11.
“We expect the slightly bullish sentiment to continue today… Any updates to the Kollsnes UMM (market update) will move the market to either direction,” LSEG analyst Saku Jussila said.
Prices have retreated over the last week after hitting a 14-month high over 50 euros/MWh earlier in January.
“There appears to be a general opinion that the massive increases over Christmas and New Year were a bit exaggerated,” analysts at Energi Danmark said in a daily research note.
“Even though storages levels are not quite as high as the last couple of years at this time, the supply situation is still comfortable.”
Europe’s gas stores are 69.34% full, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.
Temperatures are expected to be near or slightly above normal temperatures from the weekend onwards, LSEG meteorologist Georg Muller said.
In the European carbon market (CFI2Zc1), the benchmark contract was down 0.54 euro at 73.52 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters