Dutch and British wholesale gas prices rose on Friday morning, amid a rise in gas demand for power and a drop in wind speeds and as uncertainty remains over Russian gas flows to Europe with the end of the Ukraine gas transit deal looming.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 edged up by 0.30 euro to 43.58 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), or $13.68/mmBtu, by 0955 GMT, while the day ahead contract TRNLTTFD1 was up 0.75 euro at 43.40 euros/MWh.

In Britain, the day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 was 1.2 pence higher at 107.60 p per therm.

Gas demand for heating is flat on the day-ahead and gas demand for power is up by 10 million cubic meters per day (10mcm/d), LSEG analyst Timothy Crump said.

On Thursday, Russian President Putin said it was now clear there would be no new gas transit deal with Kyiv to send Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe.

“Whilst the uncertainty remains around Russian flows and any confirmed replacements of flows to eastern Europe via such plans as Poland is developing with Ukraine or Slovakia. There will remain a risk premium at least until the end of this year,” Crump said.

Germany’s lower house of parliament on Friday passed a law that will abolish a gas transit fee form January that had been driving up the cost for other countries.

Total Norwegian export nominations to the continent are stable at 253 mcm/d and total liquefied natural gas (LNG) sendout to Northwest Europe is stable at 1,860 gigawatt hour per day (GWh/d), LSEG data showed.

In the European carbon market CFI2Zc1, the benchmark contract was up 0.22 euro at 67.91 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Marwa Rashad; Editing by Susanna Twidale)