Prices rebound slightly after 8 days of price falls

Key contracts rebounded slightly on Wednesday, abruptly ending an 8-day streak of price falls.

Market participants are currently eyeing supply and demand fundamentals with a laser focus, assessing for any disruption to flows as we move into the peak demand period of the year.

An unplanned outage at Norway’s Troll gas field, the largest operational field in Europe, removed circa 8mcm across the gas-day due to process problems, though it appears to have been resolved as of this morning.

Diplomats from the US, Ukraine and Russia continue to hold indirect talks, this is being taken as a positive signal for peace progress, though nothing has been agreed as of yet.

A similar upward correction for baseload power prices on Wednesday as gas-fired plants again became the largest share of GB generation across Wednesday, averaging 40.8% (16.2GW) versus 25.7% (9.8GW) for wind output (data from Elexon).

This meant that gas price movements likely had a pronounced influence on the power market due to higher balancing requirements.

Muted/flat movements across crude oil and carbon markets likely had a more neutral effect when compared to the past few sessions.

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Price commentary courtesy of Crown Gas and Power