Dutch and British wholesale gas prices edged up on Wednesday morning on Norwegian outages and forecasts for weaker wind output.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub inched up by 0.30 euro to 40.20 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0753 GMT, LSEG data showed.

In the British market, the day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 was 1.50 pence higher at 97.50 pence per therm.

“NBP (UK gas) is up – more than the TTF (Dutch gas). It looks like this is more to do with the Oseberg planned outage tomorrow than anything else. But generally, prices are quite rangebound,” a gas trader said.

Total Norwegian exports are 3 million cubic metres (mcm) higher but unplanned outages at the Gullfaks and Oseberg fields continue.

The Oseberg field also has a planned outage starting tomorrow, which could mainly impact flows through the Langeled pipeline to Britain, said LSEG gas analyst Saku Jussila.

A decrease in wind output from tomorrow could also raise demand for gas from power plants.

Peak UK wind generation is forecast at nearly 17 gigawatts (GW) today, falling to around 8.7 GW tomorrow, Elexon data showed.

“TTF prices traded in a very narrow range yesterday, which suggests that they are in an equilibrium zone that the market considers fair given the still comfortable EU stock levels on the one hand and the various risk factors that threaten the European gas balance on the other,” said analysts at Engie EnergyScan.

“At the moment, there is no fundamental element that can definitively push them in a clear direction,” they added.

In the European carbon market CFI2Zc1, the benchmark contract inched down by 0.04 euro to 65.05 euros per metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nina Chestney)