Influx of LNG cargoes help ease day ahead gas prices
Day ahead gas prices eased on Wednesday amid strong LNG supply and tumbling oil futures.
Contracts across the near-curve posted downside of circa 0.07p/kWh when compared to their previous close, thanks in part to the recent influx of LNG cargoes. Shipping signals indicate that 6 vessels are expected to berth at British terminals over the next 14 days.
According to data from National Gas, LNG send out averaged 48mcm/d across the session, which was enough to meet 22% of forecasted demand. Prices were also helped with tumbling oil prices, as data from ICE showed that the Brent Crude benchmark contract fell 2.5% day-on-day. The contract has shed 6.5% of its value across the past week and yesterday saw the benchmark closing at its lowest level since July 20th.
On the storage front, continental Europe facilities now stand at just below 100% full which continues to help ease winter supply concerns (data from Gas Infrastructure Europe).
Gas prices have opened slightly higher this morning, with the Summer 24 front-season contract currently being offered circa 0.1p/kWh above its previous settlement, at time of writing.
It’s less windy today so gas for power generation is playing a bigger part in the energy generation mix. If we check the latest half hourly period at the time of writing (10:00 – 10.30), 28.28% (11.17 GW’s) of the UK’s total electricity (37.40 GW’s) is being generated by wind turbines with gas slightly above and highest contributor at 29.27% (11.56 GW’s).
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