Gas prices jump again today
Gas prices jumped higher again on Monday amid a combination of surging oil prices and unplanned maintenance in the UK and Norway.
The biggest moves were once again observed across the near-curve with both the front-month and front-season contracts surging more than 0.14p/kWh above their previous closing prices.
An uptick in oil prices likely served as a prime source of support throughout the session. Recent news reports suggest that as much as 900,000 barrels/day have been taken offline amid a fresh round of Ukrainian drone strikes which targeted Russia’s oil refining infrastructure over the weekend. Data from ICE shows the Brent Crude benchmark contract has climbed more than 3% since the onset of this latest wave of retaliatory strikes.
Gas capacity restrictions also affected prices as unplanned maintenance at the UK’s Barrow terminal and Norway’s Aasta Hansteen facilities combined to remove 13.5mcm/d of capacity across Mondays gas-day, although the latter appears to have been resolved as of this morning (data from National Gas and offshore operator Gassco).
This morning, although most contracts had opened slightly higher, most are now falling back towards their previous settlements at time of writing.
The UK is currently consuming just 33.00 GW’s of electricity at the time of writing (08:30 – 09:00), still helped by the mild temperatures.
Wind has really picked up today and is generating the highest proportion of the UK’s electricity as 15.09 GW’s (42.93%) this morning. Gas is only having to generate 5.39 GW’s (15.34%) of the total which will help take immediate pressure off the UK’s current gas supply problems.
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