Prompt gas contracts on Continental European hubs recouped early day losses by midday Friday as two unplanned outages at Norway's gas fields, which send gas to the UK and the Continent, cut gas flows and sparked supply worries, one trader said.
The day-ahead gas contract on the Dutch TTF trading hub was valued at Eur28.10/MWh, after changing hands at Eur27.30/MWh at the market open early Friday. The contract, however, was still lower on the day by Eur1.40 at 1200 UK time.
Similarly, the German NetConnect day-ahead gas contract, which traded at an intra-day low of Eur27.85/MWh earlier in the session, was trading at Eur28.50/MWh, posting a day-on-day loss of Eur1.10.
GASPOOL day-ahead gas recovered some of its earlier losses to trade at Eur28.10/MWh, down from Thursday's close of Eur29.30/MWh.
Prompt prices "ticked-up after weak open," because of the outages on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, one Continent-based trader said, adding that prices were still "quite low due to the comfortable system and because demand has come-off a lot."
According to Gassco's website, the restart of operations at the Troll A gas field would be delayed until early Saturday. It also said the Oseberg field was hit by a power failure, both of which have reduced gas supplies. Temperatures across Europe are set to rise back near seasonal norms by the weekend, with some cities recording above average temperatures by the middle of next week, forecaster CustomWeather said.
It showed Amsterdam, which is currently 4 degrees Celsius below the seasonal norm of 10/3 C, rising to 1 C below average for the next four days. Paris and Brussels, now 6-8 C below the norm, will rise 2 C above the norm by next Thursday.
Elsewhere, the French PEG Nord next day gas was last heard trading at Eur28.25/MWh, while the PSV gas for next day delivery was trading at Eur27.60/MWh, losing Eur2.25 and 60 euro cent respectively from the previous close.
On the curve, the later dated contracts moved lower in line with the prompt gas market with the TTF April changing hands at Eur26.15/MWh, down 15 euro cent on the day. The Cal 14 gas price was pegged at Eur26.55/MWh, down 5 euro cent on the day.
