Dutch and British wholesale gas prices continued to fall on Wednesday morning amid comfortable supply and the prospect of a relaxation of European storage targets.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub (TRNLTTFMc1) was down 0.94 euro at at 43.05 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), while the April contract was 0.83 euro lower at 43.31 euros/MWh.
In Britain, the day-ahead contract (TRGBNBPD1) was 1.10 pence lower at 104.60 pence per therm.
Prices fell on Tuesday afternoon to their lowest levels since December amid a wide sell-off from financial participants.
Germany’s gas hub Trading Hub Europe (THE) and industry representatives are in talks with the German government on loosening rules on the country’s gas storage filling levels, a Uniper official said on Tuesday.
The EU Commission is due to set out measures to boost European competitiveness on Wednesday. A draft document last week showed it wants to work on more flexible targets for EU countries to refill their gas storage.
In north-west Europe, average temperatures are forecast to fall by 1 degree Celsius, which could increase demand for heating and wind speeds are also set to fall and remain below normal for the next two weeks.
Lower wind output typically increases demand for gas from power plants.
But Norwegian pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas supply remains steady and withdrawals from storage have tempered off slightly over the past few days.
“Our today’s outlook for TTF day-ahead is for some of yesterday’s large decline to be retraced and we still believe prices should remain in the mid-forties to remain competitive with Asia given low levels of inventories,” said Wayne Bryan, head of European gas research at LSEG.
Norway is to provide financing for Ukrainian purchases of its natural gas, Ukraine’s Naftogaz company said on Tuesday, against the background of a rise in Ukrainian imports as the war with Russia batters the country’s energy system.
In the European carbon market (CFI2Zc1), the benchmark contract inched up by 0.27 euro to 72.02 euros per metric ton.
Source: Reuters