London — British wholesale gas prices rose on Wednesday, despite an oversupplied market, as an unplanned outage at a gas field was extended.
* Day-ahead gas price up 0.7 pence at 28.00 p/therm by 0755 GMT.
* Month-ahead gas price was 0.59 pence higher at 32.10 p/therm.
* Within-day gas price was yet to trade.
* The system is oversupplied with demand forecast at 144.8 million cubic metres (mcm) and supply seen at 153.1 mcm, National Grid data showed.
* An unplanned outage at the Culzean gas field offshore Britain had been extended until Thursday after there were issues starting a compressor which impacted export, according to a REMIT message.
* Traders said it was difficult to judge the market as many players were taking positions as they were caught between bullish factors — such as planned and unplanned maintenance work — and bearish factors.
* “We’re probably just a touch more bullish than bearish today but it’s marginal,” one trader said.
* Flows from Norway and the send-out rates from liquefied natural gas terminals are otherwise stable.
* “Markets are choppy,” another trader said adding that planned outages in September had been slightly increased which should tighten the market.
* Injections into medium-range storage (MRS) have been reduced which should also pressure prices, according to gas analysts at Refinitiv.
* Wind generation is higher on Wednesday than it was on Tuesday which has reduced the gas-for-power demand forecast.
* Peak wind generation is forecast at 8.7 gigawatts (GW), climbing to 9.1 GW out of a total metred capacity of 12 GW.
* Gas for power demand is seen 11 mcm lower at 40 mcm.
* Day-ahead gas price at the Dutch TTF hub rose 0.14 euro to 10.07 euros per megawatt hour.
* The benchmark Dec-19 EU carbon contract was 0.1 euro higher at 26.35 euros a tonne.
– Reuters
