Dutch and British wholesale gas prices extended the previous session’s gains on Tuesday, lifted by rising demand from cooler weather and ongoing Norwegian supply curbs, and by fears a hurricane may impact liquefied natural gas supply from the U.S.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 was up by 0.60 euros at 37.75 euros per megawatt hour, or $12.19/mmBtu, by 0802 GMT, LSEG data showed.
In the British market the day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 gained 1.50 pence to 90.50 pence per therm.
“Gas for power and local demand is forecasted higher for tomorrow as temperatures hold below seasonal normal levels,” analysts at Northern Gas and Power said in a morning briefing.
Temperatures in Britain are already below normal and will drop below normal in north-west Europe from Wednesday for the rest of the week, LSEG data showed.
Peak wind power generation in Britain is expected to drop from 18.2 gigawatts on Tuesday to 15.1 GW on Wednesday, Elexon data showed.
Maintenance at Norwegian infrastructure continues to heavily curb supply, with gas exports to continental Europe and Britain nominated flat at 190 million cubic metres on Tuesday morning, LSEG data showed.
This compares with pre-maintenance nominations of around 340 mcm/day.
In the U.S., tropical storm Francine is forecast to turn into a category 1 hurricane ahead of landfall on the Louisiana coast, home to several LNG plants, on Wednesday.
“The upcoming risk of a hurricane in the U.S. is already affecting operations at the U.S. Gulf offshore oil and gas facilities, which is likely to continue supporting prices in Europe as well,” LSEG analyst Yuriy Onyshkiv said in a report.
Feedgas at the Louisiana-based Cameron LNG facility had dropped by 260 gigawatt hours per day to 374 GWh/d this morning compared to yesterday, he added.
Russian gas producer Gazprom said it would send 42.2 mcm of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Tuesday, up from 41.9 mcm on Monday.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 rose by 0.58 euros to 67.10 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; Editing by Jan Harvey)