Dutch and British gas prices continued to rise on Tuesday morning, reacting to strikes on Ukrainian gas infrastructure, but gains were limited by healthy supply.
The benchmark Dutch front-month contract at the TTF hub was up €0.12 at €33.29 per megawatt hour (MWh), or $11.37/mmBtu, by 09:59 GMT, LSEG data showed.
The Dutch November contract was up €0.14 at €33.47/MWh.
The British day-ahead contract rose 0.85p to 85.85p per therm.
Prices have risen this week after Russia launched its largest attack on Ukrainian gas infrastructure since the start of the war, with bullish weather forecasts adding to the upside.
"Russian missile strikes targeted several facilities which Naftogaz called the biggest attack yet and a damage assessment is now underway. If the damage is notable there could be a stronger need for EU gas and/or LNG supply," said Wayne Bryan, LSEG gas research principal.
"Our outlook is for prices to adjust marginally lower, there is some risk either way if we get any new updates from Naftogaz regarding its damage assessment," he added.
However, supply from liquefied natural gas (LNG) remains strong. Norwegian production has some outages over the coming week, but production should average around 317 mcm/d, Bryan said.
Europe will need to import up to 160 additional LNG cargoes this winter due to lower storage and a decline in pipeline flows from Russia and Algeria, according to analysts and data, deepening its dependency on US gas.
LNG imports will jump to 820 tankers this year from 660 last year, representing 48 per cent of all EU gas supply, with analysts forecasting a need for around 16 billion cubic meters (bcm) this winter.
EU gas storage sites were last 82.75 per cent full, compared with 94.56 per cent at the same time last year, Gas Infrastructure Europe data showed.
Reporting by Marwa Rashad; Editing by Susanna Twidale