Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were mostly up on Wednesday morning due to an unplanned outage at Norway’s Nyhamna gas processing plant.
The benchmark Dutch front-month contract at the TTF hub (TRNLTTFMc1) was up by 0.45 euro at 34.92 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0750 GMT, while the September contract was 0.21 euro higher at 34.96 euros/MWh, LSEG data showed.
In the British market, the August contract (TRGBNBPMQ5) was up 0.81 pence at 83.01 pence per therm.
Norwegian flows towards the continent are down 7 million cubic metres (mcm) per day, after flows through the Nyhamna processing plant were restricted due to an unplanned outage, LSEG data showed.
“The impact for today is given at 50 mcm/d and we have not yet seen such a drop in flows. There is a risk for further drops today if the given impact realizes and notably also July is a holiday month in Norway, which increases the risk of further delays if the problem appears to be bigger than expected,” said LSEG analyst Saku Jussila.
“We expect a bullish reaction today on the Nyhamna outage. There are examples from the past when similar unplanned outages were extended several times and affected the market significantly. That being said, the risk might not realize if flows don’t drop further and the problem gets resolved tomorrow,” Jussila said.
Market players are monitoring Asian LNG demand with a heatwave in Japan and North Korea supporting demand for spot cargoes, which might limit the cargoes available for Europe to refill storage.
Gas storage inventories are now 63.24% full, almost 22% lower than 2024, according to analyst estimates.
The European Union failed to approve a new package of sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, as Slovakia demanded more guarantees that it would not be harmed by a separate EU plan to phase out Russian gas.
The EU’s proposals to ban Russian gas by 2028 – with a gradual phase out beginning next year – need support from a reinforced majority of countries to pass, meaning Slovakia alone cannot veto them.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract (CFI2Zc1) inched down by 0.44 euro to 71.07 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters