Dutch and British wholesale gas prices edged up on Wednesday morning after mostly trading down or sideways this week.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub was up 0.74 euro at 28.00 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0928 GMT, while the March contract was 0.80 euro higher at 28.00 euros/MWh, LSEG data showed.
In Britain, the day-ahead contract rose by 1.50 pence to 67.00 pence per therm.
“There are no really strong bullish factors today but less LNG supply and a correction after a bearish trading yesterday could be propping up the market slightly,” a gas trader said.
There is a planned outage at Norway’s Kårstø refinery and an unplanned outage at Aasta Hansen gas field.
However, flows to Britain through the Langeled pipeline are down only by 3 million cubic metres (mcm) at 66 mcm/day, LSEG data showed.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) send-out was also slightly lower for Britain and north-west Europe. A storm and strong winds in Britain have prevented some tankers from docking according to schedule and Red Sea issues are delaying some deliveries.
“Netbacks for U.S LNG cargoes are also slightly favoring deliveries to Asia compared to Europe in the coming weeks which could provide some support to European gas prices, although demand for spot LNG cargoes does not seem to pick up significantly yet in Asia,” said analysts at Engie EnergyScan.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 rose by 1.88 euros to 64.93 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nina Chestney)