EUROPE GAS-Prices edge up on Norwegian outages, lower wind forecasts
LONDON, May 20 - Dutch and British wholesale gas prices rose on Monday morning amid supply concerns due to an upcoming Norwegian maintenance outages and an ongoing outage at Gorgon LNG facility in Australia.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub inched up by 0.93 euro at 31.66 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) - equivalent to by 0856 GMT, while the day-ahead contract was up 1.08 euro at 31.83 euro/MWh according to LSEG data.
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In the British market, the front-month contract rose by 2.3 pence to 76.05 pence per therm, while the day-ahead contract was 4.50 pence higher at 78.5 p/therm.
"An upward end to the week, albeit small rises each day, has pushed the overall trend into a bit of a bullish mode for the time being," consultancy Auxilione said in a morning note.
Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ bank, said that the prospect of disruption to Norwegian gas production has played a part to price rise as some facilities undergo the works in the maintenance season.
A full shut-down of the Kollsness gas processing plant and the Troll gas field are planned this week, as well as ongoing outages at Visund and Gullfaks fields.
"The day-ahead prices will be mainly driven by the planned shutdown of Kollsness and Troll with a huge impact up to 158 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d)," LSEG analyst Tomasz Marcin Kowalski said.
"The maintenance is only planned for one day, but the impact will be significant on supply to Continental receivers. Much will depend on whether the maintenance goes according to plan," Kowalski said.
Weaker renewable power generation has also lent support to prices.
North Asian LNG prices rallied this week rising over $11 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), as hot weather boosted cooling demand and pushed consumers to secure more LNG.
Chevron was forced to reschedule the delivery of some LNG cargoes to Asia due to an outage at its Gorgon export facility in Australia. A Ukrainian drone attack on Friday raised concerns that Russia could retaliate with an attack on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, ANZ's Hynes said.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract was 2.44 euro higher at 73.13 euros per metric ton.
(Reporting by Marwa Rashad; Editing by Nina Chestney)