Gas prices in Europe remain stable ahead of US-Ukraine Meeting
Dutch and British wholesale prices for gas were mostly unchanged on Monday morning, after talks in Alaska failed to achieve a ceasefire on Friday and before a meeting today in Washington between leaders of the United States, Ukraine, and Europe.
U.S. president Donald Trump said that on Saturday, Ukraine should reach a deal with Russia to end the conflict and that he was in agreement with Putin that peace should be sought with no prior ceasefire as demanded by Ukraine and its European Allies.
The focus now will be on Trump’s meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European Leaders in Washington amid fears that the U.S. President could try to press Kyiv to accept a settlement that is favourable to Moscow.
LSEG data shows that the benchmark Dutch front-month contract for the TTF hub increased by 0.12 euros to 31.00 Euro per megawatt hour at 0733 GMT.
Winter 2025 prices were 0.33 euros lower, at 32.20 Euro/MWh.
The British September price dropped by 1.54 pence to 74.71 cents per therm.
Analysts at ING reported that European natural gas prices were under pressure in the week before the Trump-Putin Summit, and TTF prices fell to their lowest level since July 2024.
They said that "investment funds likely wanted to reduce their risk going into the weekend due to the uncertainty of how the talks might have played out."
The Japan Korea Marker premium has been extended to European gas, which could result in LNG cargoes being diverted to Asia.
ING said that "Europe will need to continue seeing strong LNG inflows to get closer to the 90% storage goal."
The demand in North-West Europe is flat, as the temperatures are expected to drop below normal for a few short days. Meanwhile, wind forecasts are also higher.
A spokesperson for Equinor, the terminal operator in Norway, said that Hammerfest LNG shut down its production of natural gas liquefied over the weekend because an electrical transformer had overheated.
LSEG data shows that the North-West Europe LNG export is expected to increase by 332 gigawatt-hours (GWh) between Friday and today, due to recoveries at the Gate Montoir Fos terminals.
The benchmark carbon contract on the European market was down 0.33 euros at 70.35 Euros per metric ton. Nina Chestney reports.
(source: Reuters)
