Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were little changed on Wednesday morning as forecasts for warmer and windier weather curbed demand for gas.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub (TRNLTTFMc1) was up 0.01 euro at 49.93 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $15.25/mmbtu, by 0917 GMT according to LSEG data.
The Dutch day-ahead contract (TRNLTTFD1) was down 0.25 euro at 50.25 euros/MWh.
In Britain, the front-month contract (TRGBNBPMc1) contract edged up 0.61 pence at 127.08 p/therm.
“Our… outlook for TTF DA is moderately bearish mainly due to continued forecasts of warmer and windier weather,” LSEG analyst Yuriy Onyshkiv said in a daily research note.
LSEG forecasts Northwest European gas demand down by 778 gigawatt hours/day for Thursday.
Gas supplies were also strong, but Onyshkiv said the market is watching developments in the U.S. after Port Freeport on Tuesday said it expects limited vessel activity due to cold weather conditions in the Texas gulf coast area.
Freeport LNG is the second-largest U.S. LNG export facility.
The market is also watching for detail on plans to refill Europe’s gas stores which are currently 59% full, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.
Germany’s system operator Trading Hub Europe (THE) issued a document on Tuesday suggesting it could subsidize buying if the summer-winter gas contract price spread wasn’t creating enough market incentives to inject gas into storage sites.
Typically, gas is stored during summer when demand and prices are lower to be sold later in winter when demand and prices are higher.
“The market remembers that a similar intervention by THE was largely responsible for the surge in European gas prices during the summer of 2022,” analyst at Engie EnergyScan said.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, EU countries set mandates to make sure storage sites were full ahead of winter, which drove up summer gas prices.
In the European carbon market (CFI2Zc1), the benchmark contract was down 1.32 euros at 78.96 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters