Dutch and British gas prices mostly fell on Wednesday, losing gains made late on Tuesday after Finnish authorities said damage to a subsea gas pipeline might have been deliberate, with high gas stores and stable Norwegian supply weighing on the market.
The Dutch November gas contract TRNLTTFMc1 was down by 1.55 euros at 47.70 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0836, according to LSEG data.
The British November TRGBNBPMc1 contract was down 3.5 pence at 120 pence per therm.
Analysts at Engie EnergyScan said there was likely to be some profit taking following Tuesday’s high prices as fundamentally the market remained well supplied.
The Dutch front-month contract spiked to a seven-month high of 52 euros/MWh on Tuesday afternoon, according to LSEG data, following the press conference by the Finnish President Sauli Niinisto about the damage to the Balticconnector link with Estonia.
Prices had already risen earlier in the day on Tuesday on supply concerns fuelled by violence in the Middle East and colder weather forecasts.
Analysts said damage to the pipeline was unlikely to have a big impact on Europe’s gas markets with its capacity around 7 million cubic metres (mcm) a day.
“The impact from outage at Balticconnector would likely be limited… Especially when northwest Europe storages are at their highest in 5 years at 96% capacity and Norwegian flows are expected to increase as the yearly maintenance comes to an end over the next week,” LSEG analyst Tim Crump said in a daily market note.
In Britain, prompt prices edged slightly higher as forecasts for cooler weather and a drop in wind power output lifted demand.
The British within-day contract was up 3.5 pence at 108.50 pence per therm while the day-ahead TRGBNBPD1 contract rose 0.6p to 111.50 p/therm, LSEG data showed.
Peak wind power output was forecast at 15.3 gigawatts (GW) on Wednesday, dropping to 7.8 GW on Thursday, Elexon data showed.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 fell by 0.56 euros to 84.22 euros a tonne.
Source: Reuters (Reporting By Susanna Twidale; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)