Dutch and British wholesale gas prices edged lower on Thursday morning as traders took profits following strong gains yesterday and as gas supplies were stable.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub (TRNLTTFMc1) was down 0.68 euro at 50.81 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $15.50/mmBtu, by 0903 GMT, according to LSEG data.

The Dutch March contract (TRNLTTFMc2) was down 0.85 euro at 50.59 euros/MWh.

In Britain the day-ahead contract (TRGBNBPD1) fell 1.5 pence at 129.5 p/therm.

“Prices are weakening slightly this morning… mainly on profit taking,” analysts at Engie Energy Scan said in a daily research note.

Benchmark prices rose by more than 5% on Wednesday on confirmation of colder forecasts, ongoing outages in Norway and concerns about storage re-filling in the summer.

“In addition to that Ukraine stated yesterday that it urgently needs to import gas now that its own storage levels are heavily depleted (now at just under 12%). The question is where will that be drawn from?,” analysts at consultancy Auxilione said.

Europe’s gas stores are currently 55% full, data from gas Infrastructure Europe showed.

Supply to Europe remained steady on Thursday, which was also bearish for prices.

“On the supply side, flows via Norway remain stable with some outages coming to an end and LNG sendout which is nominated up 15 mcm/d (million cubic metres/day) this morning,” LSEG analyst Tim Crump said in a daily research note.

In the European carbon market (CFI2Zc1), the benchmark contract was down 0.60 euro at 82.35 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters