Dutch and British gas prices were mixed on Tuesday morning, with cooler, less windy forecasts and Norwegian outages supporting the prompt but longer-dated prices falling as winter premiums diminish.

The day-ahead contract at the Dutch TTF hub was up 0.15 euro at 27.98 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) at 0956 GMT, LSEG data showed.

The benchmark front-month contract was down 1.00 euro at 28.50 euros/MWh.

In Britain, the day-ahead contract was up 1.00 pence at 70.75 pence per therm, with the front-month TRGBNBPMc1 down 0.28 pence at 69.05 p/therm.

“Storages are high and the market still does not appear to react bullishly to the increasing Middle East tensions,” analysts at Energi Danmark said in a morning report.

However, support to prices from outages in Norway is expected to ease as more production returns.

Storms over the weekend briefly knocked out power supply to Norway’s key Nyhamna processing plant, where capacity remains curtailed by 51.8 million cubic metres (mcm) per day, slightly less than the day before.

The impact of an outage at the large Troll field is also reduced to 5 mcm/day from 24 mcm/day seen on Monday.

European gas stores are currently 68.92% full, the latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.

Meanwhile, slightly colder forecasts for Wednesday are lifting demand for heating and supporting prices closer in, LSEG data showed.

Local distribution zone (LDZ) demand in northwest Europe is set to rise by 199 gigawatt hours (GWh) per day to 3,441 GWh/day, while lower wind power generation increases gas demand from the power sector.

Peak wind power in Britain was forecast at 15.8 gigawatts (GW) on Tuesday and falling to 7.2 GW on Wednesday, out of a total metered capacity of 23 GW, data from Elexon showed.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 was down 0.30 euros at 62.37 euros per metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo, Editing by Susanna Twidale)