Prices for gas in Europe are lower due to steady Russian and Norwegian supplies

The wholesale gas prices in the Netherlands and Britain fell on Thursday morning, as supplies from Russia via Ukraine remained constant.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) traded the benchmark front-month contract Dutch TTF Hub at 35.40 Euros per megawatt (MWh), down 0.74 euros, by 8:34 GMT.

The day-ahead contract on the British market was down 2.28 pence at 85.75 cents per therm.

Analysts at ING reported that prices rose on Wednesday due to a mix of supply concerns. These included any impact hurricane Francine may have on U.S. LNG exports, and a 5-day extension in maintenance work at Norway's Kollsnes plant.

The Russian gas flow through Ukraine also caused concern, as preliminary data indicates that the flows could fall from their usual 42 million cubic meters (mcm/day) to less than 30 mcm/day by Thursday.

The latest data on nominations should alleviate these concerns as they now show that gas flow should be within a normal range for Thursday.

Gazprom, the Russian gas company, said that it will send 42.4 million cubic meters of gas via Ukraine to Europe on Thursday. This volume is in line with previous days.

In a morning report by LSEG, Yuriy Onyshkiv, an analyst, said that he believed the market had absorbed recent bullish factors, such as the hurricane in the U.S.

Data from Gassco, the pipeline operator, showed that total Norwegian export nominated were up 1 mcm/day to 197 mcm/day as of Thursday morning.

National Gas data shows that the British gas system will be 17.8 mcm/day on Thursday.

Elexon data indicated that the peak wind power generation is expected to fall from 12.8 gigawatts on Thursday to 7.5 GW by Friday.

A lower wind output usually results in a higher demand for natural gas from power stations.

Georg Mueller, LSEG's meteorologist, said that continental Europe and Britain would experience cool and rainy weather until the weekend. However, next week will see a change to drier conditions and increased temperatures.

The benchmark contract on the European carbon markets was 0.84 euros lower, at 65.56 Euros per metric ton.

(source: Reuters)