The price of gas in Europe is rising due to maintenance work done by the Norwegians and a lower wind forecast
The wholesale gas prices in the Netherlands and Britain rose on Thursday, supported by continued maintenance in Norway and forecasts for lower wind output. Meanwhile, the market is monitoring developments between Russia and Ukraine.
LSEG data shows that the benchmark Dutch front-month contract for the TTF hub increased by 0.93 euros to 36.28 Euro per megawatt hour at 0834 GMT.
The British front-month contracts was 2.61 pence more expensive at 85.76 cents per therm.
The total Norwegian export nominated decreased by 35 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d), to 262 mcm/d, as maintenance at Kollsnes and Troll began. LSEG data shows that the heavy maintenance will continue until June 17 and then have a smaller impact.
Ulrich Weber of LSEG, an analyst, says that the main bullish risks today are a higher impact or extended outage.
Weber said that the wind power generation could see a cumulative drop of as much as 320 gigawatt hours per day (GWh/d).
Auxilione, a consultancy, said in an early morning note that concerns returned in today's session. The market is watching how Russia will retaliate for the Ukrainian attack against its military aircraft at the weekend.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin informed U.S. president Donald Trump that he must respond to Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia's fleet of nuclear-capable aircraft.
Putin said on Wednesday that he didn't think Ukraine's leaders were interested in peace after Ukraine attacked Russia's bomber fleet deep in Siberia, Russia's far north and bombed Russian bridges.
LSEG data indicated that temperatures in north-west Europe are likely to increase by 0.6 degrees Celsius on Monday, but then slowly return to normal at the end of the week.
The benchmark carbon contract in Europe increased by 0.72 euros to 73.33 euro per metric ton. (Reporting and editing by Eileen Soreng; Marwa Rashad)
(source: Reuters)
