Prompt gas prices on the UK's NBP gas trading hub Wednesday hit the highest levels since December 7 as temperature forecasts were revised lower and domestic storage stocks were heavily called upon to meet demand, sources said.
The within-day and day-ahead contracts at 1200 GMT were each valued at 69.35 pence/therm, having gained 1.60 and 1.10 p/th respectively from Tuesday's close.
Temperatures in London were 7 degrees Celsius below average on Wednesday, CustomWeather showed, which helped push forecast demand by National Grid 77 million cubic meters above seasonal norms to 386 million cu m.
Temperatures had been expected to rise to just 1 C below average in London by Monday but CustomWeather now expects they will be 7 C below.
Despite the heightened demand the system was fairly well balanced, although storage facilities were heavily relied on.
Customer nominations for storage withdrawals were at 97 million cu m, Platts unit Bentek Energy said.
"This would represent an all-time high in storage withdrawals and would be a key reason as to why prices would see support today," Bentek said.
Also contributing to the bullish push were lower pipeline supplies, a market analyst said.
"Higher Belgian gas prices have seen a drop in Interconnector imports and flows via the St Fergus terminals have dropped due to the closure of the Cormorant Alpha platform," he said.
The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, TAQA, shut down the Cormorant Alpha platform on Tuesday after oil was detected in one of the legs of the platform on Monday.
The bullish trend extended to front month and quarter contracts which gained 1.05 and 0.60 p/th at 67.85 and 62.25 p/th, respectively.
"Seasonal contracts have reversed the losses seen yesterday on the firmer spot and prompt," the analyst said.
Summer 13 gas moved 0.35 p/th higher to 62.20 p/th and Winter 13 gained 0.15 p/th at 70.25 p/th.
Summer 14 gas moved 0.40 p/th higher to 63.70 p/th.
