EUROPE GAS-UK prices climb to highest in 8 months amid outages

EUROPE GAS-UK prices climb to highest in 8 months amid outages

LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) – British wholesale gas prices climbed on Monday to the highest in around eight months on the back of several outages in the UK Continental Shelf.

The British day-ahead price was 10.00 pence higher at 92.00 pence per therm by 1230 GMT, while the September price was 4.33 pence higher at 103.03 pence per therm, its highest level since December last year, LSEG data showed.

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Gas traders said outages in domestic production terminals and fields were fuelling the rises.

The UK Bacton Seal terminal outage has been extended by two days until Aug. 13, while Bacton Perenco terminal has reduced supply by 10 million cubic metres (mcm) a day and the Cygnus field has a reduction of 6 mcm/day.

St Fergus Mobil will be shut from Aug 18-Sept. 24.

In the Dutch market, the front-month contract rose by 1.40 euros to 41.80 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), while the October price was up 2.01 euros at 42.99 euros/MWh.

Demand is expected to be flat across continental Europe, with strong French nuclear availability and high solar output.

Nominations, or requests for Norwegian imports are steady, while total north-west Europe liquefied natural gas (LNG) send-out is expected to rise by 131 gigawatt hours/day (GWh/d) to 1,325GWh/d due to stronger nominations at Netherlands’ Eemshaven and Belgium’s Zeebrugge, LSEG data showed.

“We asses that the risk of military operations in Sudzha continue to be a bullish support factor,” said LSEG gas analyst Tomasz Marcin Kowalski.

Video posted on Ukrainian media outlets on Friday showed Ukrainian soldiers in control of a gas measuring facility in the town of Sudzha inside Kursk region. Reuters could not immediately verify the video and the General Staff of the Ukrainian military had no comment.

However, Russia’s Gazprom said it would send 39.6 million mcm of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Monday compared to 39.3 mcm on Sunday.

Christoph Halser, gas and LNG analyst at Rystad Energy, said the market has largely priced in the potential for halted flows and the potential for Russia to exert market pressure by stopping has them has much reduced since the energy crisis of 2022 as Europe has reduced its dependency on Russian gas so much.