Prices trade within narrow range amid Nuclear outages

Gas prices continued to fluctuate within a narrow range on Thursday amid a lack of major developments, largely unchanged short-term fundamentals.

The latest weather forecasts indicate that large parts of Europe can expect to see above-average temperatures until mid-July, supporting gas-fired generation over the next couple of weeks.

Steady exports from Norway, Europe’s largest supplier, continued to serve as a price ceiling for the NBP and neighbouring hubs, no unplanned maintenance has been published so far this week.

Continental storage stocks still expected to surpass 60% fullness by Sunday, with current levels steadily reducing the deficit compared to the same period in previous years.

Minor price movements were observed in both directions across the UK baseload power curve as issues around constrained nuclear output across Europe persists, exacerbated by the ongoing heatwave.

Currently, four French nuclear reactors are offline due to unplanned maintenance. Civaux 2 remains under inspection following the discovery of stress corrosion cracks last month. Golfech 1 is still offline amid concerns over its cooling system as well as Belleville 1 and Flamanville 2.

These outages are limiting nuclear generation capacity at a time when elevated cooling demand, predominately in the continent.

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Price commentary courtesy of Crown Gas and Power