Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were mixed on Wednesday as healthy levels of inventory mitigated the impact of planned Norwegian maintenance outages in August.

The benchmark front-month Dutch contract edged up by 0.65 euro to 26.25 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0900 GMT, while the September contract was 1.10 euros lower at 28.50 euros/MWh, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

The British day-ahead price was 3.80 pence lower at 63.00 pence per therm.

Norway’s Troll field and the Kollsnes gas processing plant will undergo maintenance in August.

The Vesterled pipeline will also have its capacity cut in August and will be completely offline from Wednesday until July 21.

European gas inventories were 82.1% full on Wednesday.

Refinitiv analyst Ulrich Weber said that other bullish factors for the market include the heatwave in Southern Europe, lower solar power generation forecasts and lingering concerns over river water levels, which all could lead to higher demand.

Output from Cheniere Energy Inc’s LNG.A Sabine Pass facility has been reduced as data shows its intake of feedgas fell on Tuesday by 400 million standard cubic feet (mmscf) compared to Monday, according to data provider Refinitiv.

Cheniere Energy is the U.S.’s largest exporter of the super-chilled commodity and a major exporter of LNG to Europe. Any extension to this outage could have an upside impact on prices.

An industry alert from Wood Mackenzie said six engines at Cheniere’s Sabine Pass Train 4 facility went down on Tuesday and

blamed this for the reduction in the gas intake.

Refinitiv’s Weber said the reduction of gas for power forecast due higher expectations for windpower generation was a bearish factor for British gas prices.

Peak wind power generation in Britain is forecast at 4.4 gigawatts (GW) on Wednesday and 2.4 GW on Thursday, out of total metered capacity of 22 GW, Elexon data showed.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 edged up by 0.15 euro to 87.50 euros a tonne.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nina Chestney; editing by David Evans)