Dutch and British gas prices continued to fall on Friday morning amid expectations of high wind power output and on talk of a possible ceasefire to the conflict in Ukraine.

The Dutch front-month contract (TFMBJ5) > slipped by 0.29 euro to 41.79 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0907 GMT, on ICE.

The Dutch March contract (TFMBMK5) was down by 0.27 euro at 41.66 euros/MWh.

The British front-month contract (NGLNMJ5) was down 0.43 pence at 102.56 p/therm on ICE.

Stronger wind speeds were forecast for early next week, with gas for power demand in Northwest Europe expected down 201 gigawatt hours a day (GWh/d) at 2,908 GWh/d for Monday, LSEG data showed.

Attention has also turned to the possibility of a ceasefire in Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that his country agreed with U.S. proposals, but that any ceasefire would have to deal with the root causes of the conflict and that many details needed to be sorted out.

Putin also mentioned possible energy cooperation between the U.S. and Russia and mentioned a gas pipeline for Europe.

“The market is hedged between Russian gas returning and flows staying subdued,” analysts at Energy Aspects said.

“There is still significant European and Ukrainian opposition to the restart of pipeline flows, as well as legal and logistical hurdles,” the analysts said.

The Trump administration said on Thursday that the wind-down of a license allowing energy transactions with Russian financial institutions expired this week, raising pressure on Putin to come to a peace agreement over Ukraine.

“This might be a bullish driver for energy commodities in general but should not affect the European gas markets directly,” LSEG analyst Saku Jussila said in a daily market comment.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract (CFI2Zc1) edged down by 0.80 euro to 69.80 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters