UK wholesale natural gas prices fell at the open Monday because the UK gas system was well supplied due to high LNG sendout combined with robust Norwegian gas imports and demand dampened by mild weather.
National Grid 10:00 am local time demand forecasts for Monday were 241 million cu m with physical flows seen at 244 million cu m/d.
Both the within-day and day-ahead NBP contracts dropped below 35 pence/therm in early Monday trading and were seen at 34.90 p/th and 34.85 p/th respectively, down 0.325 p/th and 0.25 p/th from the Friday assessments.
LNG sendout from the South Hook LNG terminal ramped up at the beginning of Monday's gas day after having fallen over the weekend and been low on Friday due to an unplanned outage -- flow rates were seen at 33 million cu m/d Monday morning.
Sendout from Dragon dropped to zero overnight with Isle of Grain again inactive.
The Umm Slal is set to berth at South Hook on Monday with the Al Karaana due to follow on Friday.
Norwegian gas imports were running at 102 million cu m/d Monday morning according to Norwegian gas operator Gassco, split between Easington and St. Fergus at 54 million cu m/d and 48 million cu m/d, respectively.
UK indigenous gas production was nominated at 94 million cu m Monday according to Eclipse Energy, an analytics unit of Platts.
Imports from the Netherlands into Bacton through the BBL pipeline were running at 8 million cu m/d Monday morning.
Withdrawals from storage facilities during Monday's gas day are nominated at 12 million cu m according to Eclipse, despite the NBP spot trading at a discount to the front-month contract.
Export demand from continental Europe remains solid for the time of year with IUK 10:00 am nominations at 35 million cu m.
Falls on the NBP curve on the open Monday have been more pronounced than those on the prompt, with front-month December 15 dealt at 38.55 p/th, 0.60 p/th lower than Friday's assessment.
The Q1 16 contract was seen trading at 39.05 p/th, with Summer 16 changing hands at an even 35 p/th.
