Dutch and British gas prices were mostly down on Wednesday morning for the second straight session, as the market breathed a sign of relief after Gassco confirmed a Norwegian outage would take less time than feared to fix.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 was almost flat at 34.25 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or 10.9 USD/mmBtu, by 0832 GMT, according to LSEG data.
The Dutch day-ahead TRNLTTFD1 contract was down 0.15 euro at 33.73 (MWh).
In the British market, the day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 was down 0.15 pence at 81.6 pence per therm.
Prices in Europe and Britain had hit their highest levels since early December on Monday as an unplanned outage at Norway’s offshore Sleipner Riser platform curbed supply.
“After the first moment of panic, the market seemed to realize that the situation was not so catastrophic…(therefore) the market has decided to return to its wait-and-see position,” analysts at Engie’s EnergyScan said in a morning note.
Norway overtook Russia as Europe’s biggest gas supplier in 2022, after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine severed decades-long energy ties.
Norwegian supply to the continent remained stable at 248 gigawatt hour per day (GWh/d) despite the ongoing outages, LSEG data showed.
Additionally, LNG sendout is nominated up 270 GWh/d with increases in sendout from Dunkirk following the arrival of the Vladimir Rusanov from Russia on Tuesday.
“Both of these should add support to the bears,” LSEG analyst Timothy Crump said.
The TTF benchmark price is trading at a $1 discount to the Asian average LNG price currently near $12/mmBtu.
The recent price rally has seen Chinese buyers make use of the gains to offload some cargo to take advantage of attractive international prices and weak domestic ones, said Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ bank.
This problem has once again displayed the tension the market sits under, despite prices declining over the course of the last year or so, as global issues still have a rapid and direct impact on energy markets, consultancy Auxilione said in a daily note.
European gas storage facilities were last seen 70.6% full, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) data.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 dipped by 0.61 euro to 71.72 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Marwa Rashad; Editing by Varun H K)