Spot prices eased Thursday morning on the UK's NBP gas trading hub as demand was forecast at the lowest level so far this year.
Same- and next-day contracts at midday BST were each valued at 64.70 pence/therm, down by 1.30 and 0.40 p/th respectively from Wednesday's close.
At the 11:00 assessment, National Grid had forecast demand pegged at 159 million cubic meters -- 15 million cu m below Wednesday and 48 million cu m below seasonal norms. After opening 26 million cu m long the system was finely balanced.
Some of the demand fall is due to lower Interconnector (IUK) exports to the Continent, a gas analyst said.
Customer nominations indicated about 12 million cu m would be transported via the IUK pipeline which is the lowest since returning from maintenance at June 27. Last week it peaked at 46 million cu m/d.
Medium range storage facility, Holford, was withdrawing at rates of 21 million cu m during the morning but fell to zero before noon.
The Norwegian Kollsness terminal had restarted after an unplanned 15 hour shutdown on Wednesday, restricting 30 million cu m/d, due to a power failure.
The Norwegian Langeled pipeline was shipping gas to the UK at 23 million cu m/d while the South Hook terminal remained at rates of half of what it was doing in June, at 24 million cu m/d.
Local port data shows no ships scheduled for the terminal in the near-term.
Demand on Friday and Monday is expected at 175 million cu m while the weekend is forecast at about 165 million cu m/d.
Temperatures Thursday in London were in line with seasonal norms but are expected to rise to 3 C above at the beginning of the new week.
The August contract fell by 0.25 p/th to 65.25 p/th while losses extended along the curve.
Winter 13 and Summer 14 were down by 0.15 p/th each at 72.20 and 64.15 p/th.
Winter 14 was valued at 70.65 p/th, down by 0.10 p/th.
