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EUROPE GAS-Prices edge up on Norwegian failures, lower wind projections

LONDON, May 17 - Dutch and British wholesale gas prices edged up on Friday morning due to an upcoming Norwegian upkeep failures and falling wind output.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub inched up by 0.25 euro at 30.90 euros per megawatt hour ( MWh) by 0907 GMT, while the July agreement was up 0.30 euro at 31.15 euro/MWh according to LSEG information.

In the British market, the weekend contract rose by 1.65 cent to 73.00 pence per therm.

Norwegian failures have contributed to some upside however the majority of the remainder of the signals are bearish, a gas trader said.

Next week, there will be a full shut down of the Kollsness gas processing plant and the Giant gas field, along with ongoing failures at Visund and Gullfaks fields.

Yesterday, Gassco also added an upkeep outage at Kvitebjørn field for Monday.

In north-west Europe, falling wind speeds might lift demand for gas from power plants over the weekend.

Technically, the TTF day-ahead struck a wall at the 30 euros/MWh 21-day moving average as a prospective resistance threshold, said LSEG gas analyst Yuriy Onyshkiv.

The day-ahead cost settled at 30 euros/MWh on Thursday and was yet to trade at the time of writing, according to LSEG data.

If it breaks through it, the cost might continue demonstrating more gains. However, the technical signals are combined, while fundamentally our balance forecast is sideways. Meanwhile, the marketplace is looking for even more signals for instructions, he included.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract was 1.10 euro greater at 71.20 euros per metric ton.

(source: Reuters)