Prompt contracts on the Continental European gas markets traded Friday little changed from the price levels seen over the previous week as fundamentals offer little direction and liquidity remains limited.
The UK's NBP system was relatively balanced Friday morning with forecast demand falling short of the seasonal norm, and offering little direction to rangebound European contracts, traders said.
The Continent's most liquid trading hub, the Dutch TTF, heard little change midday, London time, Friday. The day-ahead contract traded flat to Thursday's close of Eur21.60/MWh while the front month softened 5 euro cent over the same period to Eur21.75/MWh midday.
Gas flows from the Netherlands to the UK via the BBL pipeline fell off Thursday afternoon to around 5 million cubic meters/day but rallied back to over 16 million cu m/day early Friday morning and remained steady through to midday.
Prompt contracts on the German gas markets eased back Friday morning although contracts were "not especially lower", said a trader.
The German GASPOOL day-ahead slipped 5 euro cent to Eur21.70/MWh while the German NetConnect shed 10 euro cent to Eur21.85/MWh.
The French PEG Nord and Austrian Baumgarten day-ahead prices followed the softer trading on the German markets moving down Friday morning from Thursday's close. The PEG Nord contract lost 15 euro cent, while the Baumgarten day-ahead shed 5 euro cent to change hands at lunchtime at Eur21.85/MWh and Eur22.40/MWh respectively.
The slightly bearish sentiment extended across the forward curve despite the rising Brent crude price, which a trader described as "a little surprising" but noted that gains on the crude market were modest.
At 1025 GMT, September ICE Brent traded 34 cents higher at $117.85/b finding support from more positive US macroeconomic data and the agreement on the EU's Greek bailout package.
