Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were little changed on Firday morning amid quiet trading and as concerns eased around remaining Russian pipeline gas supply to Europe.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 inched up by 0.04 euro to 34.50 euros per megawatt hour by 0759 GMT, LSEG data showed.

In the British market, the front-month TRGBNBPMc1 contract eased by 0.04 pence to 80.35 pence per therm.

“(Market) drivers aren’t strong today but there will be eyes on the Visund outage and possibly another extension,” a gas trader said.

An unplanned outage at Norway’s Dvalin field was announced overnight which has a limited 3 million cubic metre (mcm) impact, while an outage at the Visund field with a 15 mcm/day impact was extended yesterday to June 25.

Chevron said on Friday that restart activities at the Wheatstone gas facility are ongoing. Production was suspended last week to complete repairs on the platform’s fuel system.

Immediate concerns over remaining Russian gas supply to Europe through the Ukraine transit route have eased as more than 40 mcm of gas was booked to transit Ukraine for Friday – in line with usual levels.

“There have been concerns that recent court rulings in Europe would mean payments to Gazprom from the remaining buyers of Russian gas in Europe could be blocked, and these funds seized to compensate for damages awarded to the likes of Uniper for Gazprom’s failure to deliver gas,” said analysts at ING.

Temperatures in Britain are forecast several degrees above normal over the coming week, while temperatures in north-west Europe are expected to be lower for the next two days, close to normal average levels. Wind power generation is fairly strong, dampening gas-for-power demand.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 inched up by 0.06 euro to 69.28 euros per metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nina Chestney)