Wholesale British and Dutch gas prices rose on Thursday morning after two days of declines, bolstered by the extension of an unplanned outage at Norway’s Hammerfest liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to June 14 because of technical challenges.

However, Strong storage build and mild weather are expected to keep demand low and limit the upside.

The benchmark Dutch front-month contract TRNLTTFMc1 rose by 1.25 euros to 28 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0903 GMT, Refinitiv Eikon data shows.

The Dutch day-ahead day contract TRNLTTFD1 was 1.85 euros up at 27.10 euros/MWh.

“Spot gas fundamentals have not changed; they remain comfortable and a trend reversal is not justified,” Analysts at Engie’s EnergyScan said, adding that a drop later during the session cannot be ruled out.

Europe’s gas stores are already 70.5% full, the latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed, while LNG supply remains solid.

In addition, temperatures are rising throughout Europe and demand is expected to be relatively low, with wind and solar power supply high, said Refinitiv analyst Ulrich Weber.

In Britain, the day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 was up 3.5 pence at 67 p/therm.

Britain’s gas market was undersupplied by 11.8 million cubic metres (mcm) on Thursday, with demand forecast at 150.1 mcm and supply at 138.3 mcm, National Grid data showed.

Peak wind power generation in Britain is forecast at 9.5 gigawatts (GW) for Thursday and 9.1 GW on Friday out of total metered capacity of 22 GW, Elexon data showed.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 was flat at 83.53 euros a tonne.
Source: Reuters (Reporting By Marwa Rashad Editing by David Goodman )