The benchmark European gas price at the Dutch TTF hub rose on Thursday morning to a one-month intraday high while British wholesale gas prices also rose on unplanned maintenance at the Sleipner gas field in Norway.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 was up 0.48 euro at 36.20 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $11.44/mmBtu, by 0858 GMT, the highest level since early July, LSEG data showed.
The Dutch October contract TRNLTTFMc2 was up 0.25 euros at 37.00 euros/MWh.
In the British market, the day-ahead contract TRGBNPD1 was up 0.80 pence at 83.00 pence per therm.
Norwegian gas system operator Gassco scheduled a gas outage impacting 5 million cubic metres per day at the Sleipner gas field from Aug. 1-2, it said in a market message on Wednesday.
“News relating to activity in the Middle East appears to dominate the underlying concerns,” consultancy Auxilione said in a daily note.
The killing of a Hamas leader in Iran has raised concerns that the 10-month-old war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas was turning into a wider Middle East war.
“The strike on the Hamas leader in Teheran increases the risk of direct confrontation between Isreal and Iran. If the day stays more quiet in terms of news from the Middle East we should see prices retrace some the recent gains on the first day of trading in August,” said LSEG analyst, Ulrich Weber.
Meanwhile, analysts at Engie’s EnergyScan said that speculative players are also concerned by the current risks for the European gas balance, including potential hurricanes affecting the U.S. LNG production and extended maintenance outages at Norway’s terminals.
In Britain, gas-for-power demand will start falling on the day-ahead as wind power generation is expected to rise on Monday, LSEG’s Weber said.
Peak wind power generation was forecast at 3.4 gigawatts (GW) on Thursday, rising to 10.4 GW on Friday, Elexon data showed.
In the European carbon market CFI2Zc1, the benchmark contract inched up by 0.01 euro to 69.22 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting By Marwa Rashad; Editing by Nina Chestney)