European gas prices hold steady despite lower Norway flows

Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were little changed on Friday morning as maintenance-hit supply in Norway was offset by sluggish demand.

The benchmark Dutch front-month contract at the TTF hub was down €0.25 at €31.45 per megawatt hour (MWh), or $10.75/mmBtu, by 08:22 GMT, LSEG data showed.

The Dutch day-ahead contract was down €0.05 at €31.96/MWh.

The British front-month gas price eased by 0.92p to 77.3p per therm.

Norwegian gas output continued to decline because of planned maintenance ahead of the winter season, but that has been offset by strong liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply and wind power generation, consultancy Auxilione said.

Total Norwegian export nominations are down 12 million cubic metres per day from Thursday owing to maintenance ramping up at the Troll gas field, LSEG data showed.

British peak wind power generation was expected at 11.3 gigawatts on Friday rising to 17.9 GW on Saturday, Elexon data showed. News that a tanker carrying LNG from Russia's sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 plant has moored at an import terminal in southern China on Thursday was seen as bearish for the market. If China takes more gas from Russia, that could mean it needs less LNG from other sources.

“As China does not really need additional spot LNG volumes, market participants tend to believe that this is a test of how far the United States is willing to go with sanctions,” Engie EnergyScan analysts said in a market note.

(Reporting by Susanna Twidale Editing by David Goodman)