Gas prices unchanged amid low LNG supply

Gas prices were relatively unchanged on Tuesday as pressures of low LNG supply was counteracted by average storage levels for the time of year.

Slight upside of no more than 0.034p/kWh was posted across the majority of contracts following a series of bullish sessions.

According to data from National Gas, LNG send out volumes have fallen to the lowest levels seen so far this year, amid a recent lull in cargoes of the fuel, with shipping signals indicating that only 2 vessels expected to arrive at UK terminals over the next two weeks.

Norwegian flow nominations into Great Britain remained largely unchanged when compared to the previous gas-day (around 73mcm/d) despite an unplanned outage at the Aasta Hansteen field across the same period.

Fortunately, low seasonal demand has kept storage levels high, which likely offered support to the pressures of low LNG supply; the latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe shows that aggregate EU storage stands at just under 60% full, which is a massive 14% above the 5-year moving average.

In other news, the Secretary of the US Department of Energy remarked at the CERAWeek 2024 event that the current pause on new US LNG export projects could extend as far out as March 2025.

Prices have weakened slightly this morning, with the Summer 24 front-season contract currently being offered 0.07p/kWh below its previous settlement, at time of writing.

The UK is currently consuming just 33.03 GW’s of electricity at the time of writing (10:30 – 11:00), still helped by the mild temperatures.

Wind has however dropped today and is only making up 3.70 GW’s (10.53%) of the UK’s electricity generation this morning. Gas having to generate a massive 15.96 GW’s (45.42%) of the total currently.

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