Dutch and British wholesale prices were broadly steady on Friday near one-year highs as some profit-taking was offset by ongoing concerns over Russian supply and as cold weather sapped gas stocks.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 eased by 0.60 euros to 45.75 euros per megawatt hour by 0930 GMT, LSEG data showed. On Thursday it hit 46.35 euros/MWh intraday, its highest since Nov. 24 last year.
The Dutch day-ahead contract TRNLTTFD1 eased by 0.35 euros to 45.60 euros/MWh.
The British front-month contract TRGBNBPMc1 was up 0.46 pence at 115.75 pence per therm, while the day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 was down 0.25 pence at 116.50 p/therm.
Analysts at Engie Energyscan said in a morning note that while TTF prices were weakening slightly, mainly on profit taking, bullish fundamentals continued to outweigh that factor and the uptrend was ongoing.
Prices rallied on Thursday after Austrian utility OMV said it intends to stop paying for imports from Russia’s Gazprom to recoup damages it won in an arbitration case, which could cut Russian supplies to Austria before year-end.
“The threat of an imminent cut to supply comes as the strain of the heating season emerges,” Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ, said in a daily note.
Gas held in storage facilities had been drawn down at the fastest rate in more than five years, he added.
European gas storage sites were last 92.1% full, down from 95.2% seen at the start of the month, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.
Analysts at Energy Aspects said in a note that European gas storage could deplete from 104.3 billion cubic metres at the start of this winter’s heating season to 41.5 bcm by end-March, 22.1 bcm lower than at the end of the previous winter.
“That will leave Europe scrambling to try to get stocks back up above 90 bcm (the aggregation of Europe’s storage targets) by end-October 2025,” they added.
Temperatures in Britain are set to fall sharply over the weekend and from early next week in continental Europe, with the latter potentially returning to normal levels by the end of next week, LSEG data showed.
In the European carbon market, CFI2Zc1, the benchmark contract eased by 0.47 euros to 67.80 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; Editing by Jan Harvey)