Dutch and British wholesale gas prices rose on Friday morning, supported by forecasts of cold weather in early January and fading hopes for a new deal to transit Russian gas through Ukraine.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub (TRNLTTFMc1) was up 1.27 euros at 46.80 euros per megawatt hour, or $14.36/mmBtu, by 0914 GMT.
The February contract (TRNLTTFMc2) was up by 1.211 euros at 46.96 euros/MWh.
In Britain, the front-month contract (TRGBNBPMc1) was up by 2.44 pence at 118.20 pence per therm.
“The trend to a rather cold and only moderately unsettled situation in the first 10 days of January seems rather certain as all forecasts show rising pressure over the northern North Atlantic,” LSEG meteorologist Georg Mueller said.
Colder weather typically lifts gas demand for heating.
On the supply side, a current transit deal for Russian gas via Ukraine, that still supplies several European countries, is set to expire at the end of the year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday there was no time left this year to sign a new deal.
Russian supplier Gazprom said it would send 41.5 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Friday, up from 41.4 mcm on Thursday.
Nominations for natural gas flows into Slovakia from Ukraine on Friday were steady at levels seen in recent days, data from transmission system operator Eustream showed.
Nominations for flows from Slovakia onwards to Austria and the Czech Republic were also in line with previous days, the data showed.
The loss of piped Russian gas should see Europe import more liquefied natural gas (LNG).
On Thursday, U.S. LNG company Venture Global said the first cargo from its newly commissioned Plaquemines export plant in Louisiana had left the facility bound for Germany.
EU gas storage inventories were 74.74% full, around 10 percentage points below their levels at the same point in time over the past two years, but still within a normal range overall, Gas Infrastructure Europe data showed.
In the European carbon market (CFI2Zc1), the benchmark contract was up 0.92 euro at 70.39 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters