Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were down on Friday morning on stable supply, strong storage inventories and milder weather forecast, while the market keeps an eye on U.S. Freeport LNG’s return to full production.
The front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub was down 0.57 euros at 32.10 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) at 0952 GMT, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) data showed.
In the British market, the front-month contract was down 1.08 pence at 74.96 pence per therm, according to ICE data.
“European prompt gas prices could come back under bearish pressure today with the expected return of milder and windier weather next week. Market players should keep an eye on restart operations at the Freeport LNG terminal as well,” analysts at Engie’s EnergyScan said in a daily note.
The number of LNG tankers waiting to load at Freeport LNG in Texas has increased since the second-largest U.S.exporter of the supercooled gas halted processing ahead of Hurricane Beryl’s landfall last week, according to shipping data on Thursday.
Freeport, which shut its three liquefaction trains on July 7 and reported wind damage later, has been offline longer than expected and has cancelled seven to 10 cargoes so far, according to traders and analyst estimates.
The LNG exporter planned to restart one processing train this week and the remaining two trains shortly after, but production would be reduced while it continued repairs.
Traders in oil, gas, power, stocks, currencies and bonds from London to Singapore struggled to operate on Friday as a global cyber outage hampered operations, companies, banks and trading sources said.
Maintenance work has been extended by four days to Aug. 5 at the western French LNG terminal at Montoir due to safety reasons, operator Elengy said in an online bulletin.
This is the third delay in the work at the terminal, which was initially expected to restart on July 22.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract fell 0.41 euros to 66.03 euros a metric ton.
Source: Reuters (Reporting By Marwa Rashad; Editing by Shreya Biswas)