Gas for day-ahead delivery continued to fall Wednesday from Monday's seven-year high following a return to operations of the Norwegian Nyhamna processing terminal and strong imports, which saw the system well supplied with little reliance on domestic storage stocks.
At 1200 GMT, the within-day contract was valued at 74.40 pence/therm, down by 0.10 p/th from Tuesday's close, and the day-ahead price shed 0.70 p/th at 74.30 p/th.
"Norwegian gas imports have resumed at closed to full capacity this morning on the back of the Nyhamna facility resuming full capacity late yesterday," a market analyst said. "Storage withdrawals have dropped to zero with the system flooded with imports."
After heavy reliance on storage stocks in recent days and weeks and higher prices expected next week, facilities took the opportunity to top up stocks.
"Total net injection is around the 29 million cubic meters mark. This is the largest net injections since January 1, which is a normal day due to it being a national holiday," an analyst from Platts unit Bentek Energy said.
Temperature forecasts were revised lower for the second day with below averages expected Saturday and to continue into the new week, CustomWeather showed.
London is expected to be 8 degrees Celsius below norms on Sunday when forecasts from the beginning of the week expected to to remain above norms.
Gas for delivery during the working days next week was valued higher than the spot prices at around 76.90 p/th.
The system was fairly well balanced throughout the morning with demand at 1200 GMT pegged at 306 million cu m, National Grid showed.
The front month, quarter and seasonal contracts held firm, each falling by just 0.05 p/th at 68.30, 66.20 and 65.65 p/th, respectively.
Crude futures moved to near intra-day lows in morning European trading Wednesday, as the market shrugged off the death of OPEC-member Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez as well as firmer regional equity markets after Wall Street set a new record high Tuesday.
At 1035 GMT, April ICE Brent traded 42 cents lower at $111.19/barrel.
Later dated seasonal gas contracts also heard losses with Winter 13 down by 0.30 p/th at 72.35 p/th and Summer 14 down by 0.15 p/th at 65.40 p/th.
