Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were little changed on Friday as expectations of warmer windier weather helped to offset ongoing concerns over storage levels balancing lower prompt gas demand from milder, windier weather.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub (TRNLTTFMc1) was down 0.27 euros at 48.90 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $15.07 mmbtu, by 0923 GMT, LSEG data showed.

The Dutch day-ahead contract (TRNLTTFD1) was up 0.80 euros at 49.50 euros/MWh.
In Britain, the day-ahead contract (TRGBNBPD1) was up 0.37 pence at 125.50 p/therm.

Milder-than-normal and windier conditions at the moment were curbing gas demand, with Britain on track to see the first injections into storage since the start of the year, LSEG analyst Yuriy Onyshkiv said.

Gas storage sites in north-west Europe meanwhile are expected to drop to around 46% full by Feb. 1, in line with EU-wide intermediary storage targets, he added.

This eased some short-term storage pressure, although storage refilling concerns during this summer remain, Onyshkiv said.

Europe’s gas storage sites are currently 57.6% full, compared with 73.8% seen at the same time last year, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.

“The market and member countries are becoming increasingly concerned about the task of refilling storage through the injection season and the fact that the forward curve provides no incentive to store gas for next winter,” ING analysts said in a morning note.

Instead, talk of subsiding the refill of storage is growing, ING’s analysts said.
Summer prices (TRNLTTFSU5) were last seen 5.02 euros higher than those for next winter equivalent (TRNLTTFSH6), LSEG data showed.
In the European carbon market (CFI2Zc1), the benchmark contract was up 0.19 euros at 80.95 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters