Russian Flows Back to Normal: Gazprom Export

Gazprom Export said December 13 that it again "fully meets daily nominations of our clients that are receiving gas via Austrian gas hub Baumgarten." 

The Russian gas exporter added that its ability to meet nominations again had "become possible due to fast and efficient work of our Austrian partners to resume natural gas transit after the accident." 

Italy's gas grid operator Snam said it resumed Russian flows from Austria into Italy at 21hrs local time (8pm GMT) December 12. 

Flows were disrupted December 12 as a result of the explosion at the Baumgarten gas hub in eastern Austria, operated by Gas Connect Austria (GCA), which is along TAG's route.   GCA and Snam had said that evening that they expected flows to resume within hours, with Snam correctly forecasting they would be back by midnight. 

Austrian oil and gas firm OMV, which is GCA's 51%-owner, told NGW 11.45am GMT December 13 that "flows are back to normal."

Prices are trending back down to more normal winter levels. A west European trader, speaking to NGW about half an hour earlier, at 11.15 GMT, said that the Italian PSV virtual hub had just traded 'within-day' gas at €28.20/MWh ($9.71/million Btu), in contrast to highs for intra-day PSV on December 12 of around €80/MWh ($27.54/mn Btu). Day-ahead PSV on December 13 at 11.15 GMT though was still talked in a wide range of €23.55/MWh bid, €29.40/MWh offer with little trading: "Some may be a little short for today, with Italian gas grid operator Snam indicating a price of around €38/MWh-gas for any day-ahead imbalances." 

"We've seen all is fine on the Russian side, with Italy now properly balanced, and flows back to normal at Velke Kapusany [on the Ukrainian border with Slovakia]" the trader added.

Leading European hub, Dutch TTF, traded at €23.10/MWh-gas for within-day at December 13, he added, with a tight bid/offer range of €21.675/21.725 for day-ahead TTF.  Several North Sea outages – such as from the Troll field that was out of action due to a platform power outage on December 12 morning – are now flowing again, with Norwegian flows into Emden back to normal, although Norwegian flows via Langeled to northeast England are not fully normalised, at a time of much higher demand than usual for these days. Prices at the UK hub have been rocketing with very cold weather and pipeline problems squeezing the market from both sides.

UK system average prices

(Source: National Grid)

Italian gas grid operator Snam has confirmed that flows into Italy, via its majority-owned Trans Austria Gas pipeline (TAG), resumed at 21hrs local time last night. The pipeline carries primarily Russian gas, from over the Slovak-Austrian border to northeast Italy, and has an annual transport capacity of 30bn m³/yr. Snam said none of its or TAG's facilities were damaged in the incident.

Russia is Italy's largest gas supplier, and previous annual imports have run close to TAG's 30bn m³/yr capacity level, and are likely to do so this year too.