Dutch and British wholesale gas prices edged up on Friday morning, rebounding from the previous session’s losses, as workers at Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities authorised the union to call a strike and ahead of a period of Norwegian maintenance outages.

The Dutch September contract TRNLTTFMc1 rose by 1.20 euros to at 33.40 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0755 GMT, while the October contract TRNLTTFMc2 edged up by 0.45 euro to 36.00 euros/MWh, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

The British September contract TRGBNBPMU3 rose by 1.03 pence to 82.00 pence per therm.

Workers have voted to authorize the Offshore Alliance of Unions to call a strike at Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone projects.

This means that the workers can go on strike with a seven-day notice period if no agreement with Chevron is reached.

The escalation comes a day after the Offshore Alliance reached an in-principle agreement at Woodside’s North West Shelf LNG facility, Australia’s largest, triggering a sharp fall in Dutch and British wholesale gas prices on Thursday

“Lengthy industrial action lasting into Q4 2023 adds significant upside risk to winter 2023–24 prices,” said analysts at consultancy Energy Aspects.

Next week, Norwegian gas fields and processing plants will also start another period of maintenance outages.

The Troll field and Kollsnes gas processing plant will be shut from Aug. 26 to Sept. 7, while other assets also undergo outages.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 inched down by 1.03 euros to 82.00 euros a tonne.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nina Chestney)