Dutch and British wholesale gas prices ticked lower on Monday morning amid a steady supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and mild, windy weather limiting demand, but fresh Russia-related sanctions remain an upside risk.
The benchmark Dutch front-month contract at the TTF hub was down €0.46 at €32.19 per megawatt hour (MWh), or $11.07/mmBtu, by 08:43 GMT, LSEG data showed.
The Dutch day-ahead contract was down €0.10 at €31.90/MWh.
The British front-month gas price fell 1.28p to 79.15p/therm, while the day-ahead price eased by 1p to 78 p/therm.
"We expect prices to trade sideways, amid stable near-term supply but tightening signals later in the week," LSEG analyst Oleh Skrynyk said.
Germany's Emden gas receiving terminal will start planned maintenance on Thursday, while wind output will ease in the coming days, increasing gas for power demand, Skrynyk specified.
European gas inventories at 80 per cent full, solid LNG inflows and mild, windy weather forecasts point to lower gas prices this week, Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management, said in a morning report.
Geopolitics and potential sanctions represent an increasing upside risk, especially any US reaction to exports from Russia's sanctioned Arctic 2 LNG plant, that have helped keep global LNG prices down and indirectly compete with US LNG, Rasmussen added.
A fourth cargo from Arctic LNG 2 was discharged at the Chinese port of Beihai on September 14, four days after a third LNG vessel departed, LSEG ship-tracking data showed.
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States was prepared to impose fresh energy sanctions on Russia, but only if all NATO nations ceased purchasing Russian oil and implemented similar measures.
(Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; Editing by Eileen Soreng)