LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) –Dutch and British gas prices declined on Friday morning, after climbing to their highest in 10 days the day before, as demand in north-west Europe is forecast to drop over the weekend.
The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 inched down by 0.20 euro to 35.53 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0926 GMT, while the Q4 price TRNLTTFQc2 was 1.20 euro lower at 38.70 euros/MWh, LSEG data showed.
In the British market, the weekend contract TRGBNBPWE was down 1.00 pence at 83.25 pence per therm.
On Thursday, prices rose as an outage at Australia’s Wheatstone gas facility, a key supplier to Asian customers, was expected to last for several weeks.
There were also concerns about the potential loss of pipeline gas through the Ukraine transit route following a Uniper arbitration ruling against Gazprom earlier this week.
“Increased Asian demand, alongside risks to Russian supply and maintenances at Norwegian fields, has pushed European gas prices higher with the TTF price up 40% over the last three months and trading close to $11 per million British thermal units (mmbtu),” he said Lucy Cullen Research Director, EMEA gas & LNG research at Wood Mackenzie.
Today, concerns around supply have ebbed for now as European gas demand is forecast to drop over the weekend.
Total demand in north-west Europe is forecast to fall by 300 gigawatt hours/day on the day-ahead over the weekend as temperatures rise, LSEG data showed.
In Britain, demand is expected to rise slightly due to lower wind speeds on Monday but supply flows are comfortable, said Saku Jussila, gas analyst at LSEG.
European gas storage is forecast to reach 100% by the end of September and remain full until the end of October, with an additional 4 million tonnes per annum of floating storage also accumulated, Wood Mackenzie said in a report.
In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 edged down by 0.52 euro to 70.19 euros per metric ton.
Reporting by Nina Chestney
