Dutch and British gas prices were mixed early on Wednesday as concerns over strikes at Chevron’s CVX.N liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Australia outweighed high gas inventories, comfortable LNG imports and subdued gas demand.
The Dutch October contract TRNLTTFMc1 rose by 0.10 euro to 34.00 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0843 GMT, LSEG Eikon data showed.
In the British market, the October contract TRGBNBPMc1 rose by 1.25 pence to 83.75 p/therm while the day-ahead contract TRGBNBPD1 was down 2.00 pence at 81.00 p/therm.
“The uncertainty over the LNG strikes is still hovering and as we get closer to the start date the market will be bullish even though Norwegian production is slowly coming back and storage is full,” a European gas trader said,
“We might see a little spike at close if no news comes out by then,” he added.
Workers at Chevron’s CVX.N Gorgon and Wheatstone liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in Australia are set to start strikes for a few hours a day from Sept. 7 but have threatened to escalate the action to a total strike for two weeks from Sept. 14 if a resolution cannot be found.
The strike decision comes amid mediation talks hosted by the Fair Work Commission, Australia’s industrial arbitrator, which began on Monday and are scheduled to run every day this week, ahead of the brief stoppages starting on Thursday.
Analysts at Engie’s EnergyScan said the strikes in Australia continued to fuel intraday volatility despite no major breakthrough in talks between unions and Chevron on Tuesday.
However, Norwegian gas production is expected to rebound significantly next week barring any further outage extension while the ongoing heatwave is expected to end this weekend with the return of closer-to-seasonal temperatures and rising wind power generation, they added.
Europe’s gas storage sites, however, are more than 93.3% full, according to latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 rose by 0.64 euro to 84.49 euros a tonne.
Source: Reuters (Reporting By Marwa Rashad; editing by David Evans)