Prices for EUROPE GAS are near their highest levels in a year due to supply concerns and storage drawbacks

Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were roughly flat on Friday, near their one-year-highs. Profit-taking was offset with ongoing concerns about Russian supply as well as cold weather reducing gas stocks.

LSEG data show that the benchmark contract for the first month at TTF's Dutch hub fell by 0.60 euro to 45.75 Euros per Megawatt Hour by 0930 GMT. It reached 46.35 euro/MWh intraday on Thursday, its highest intraday since November 24 of last year.

The Dutch day-ahead contracts eased by 0.35 euro to 45.60 Euro/MWh.

The British day-ahead contract fell 0.25 pence to 116.50 pence per thermo, whereas the front-month contract rose 0.46 pence to 115.75 p/therm.

Engie Energyscan analysts said that despite a slight decline in TTF prices, due to profit-taking, the fundamentals remained positive and that the upward trend was continuing.

Prices rose on Thursday, after Austrian utility OMV announced it would stop paying for imports of Russian Gazprom in order to recover damages won in arbitration. This could result to the suspension of Russian supplies into Austria by year's end.

Daniel Hynes is a senior commodity strategist with ANZ. He said that the threat of a supply cut was imminent as the heating season began to take its toll.

He added that the gas in storage had been withdrawn at a rate faster than in five years.

Gas Infrastructure Europe reported that European gas storage facilities were 92.1% filled at the end of last month, down from 95.2% at the beginning of the month.

Energy Aspects analysts said that by the end of March, the European gas storage would be down from 104.3 billion cubic meters at the beginning of the heating season this winter to 41.5 billion cubic metres. This is 22.1 bcm less than the previous winter.

The authors added that "that will leave Europe scrambling in order to get stock levels back above 90 bcm by the end of October 2025 (the total storage target for Europe)."

LSEG data indicated that temperatures in Britain will drop sharply this weekend, and continental Europe may see temperatures return to normal by the end next week.

The benchmark contract on the European carbon markets has eased from 67.80 to 0.47 euros per metric ton.

(source: Reuters)