NBP Day-ahead rockets on undersupplied natural gas system
NBP Day-ahead surged more than 4p/th from Friday's close as the British natural gas system was undersupplied on Monday morning, amid strong demand.
At 11:00 hours London time, the contract was marked at 83.738p/th, or €32.833/MWh, leaving other major hubs in Europe trailing in its wake. NBP Day-ahead held a premium of €4.533/MWh to the TTF equivalent on Monday morning. On Friday, the spread closed at €3.482/MWh.
Britain's Day-ahead price has not closed above 80p/th since February 2012.
British demand is forecast to be far higher on Monday (at 377mcm) than the rest of the week, but below-seasonal temperatures look set to keep demand high over the coming sessions.
Predicted closing linepack was about 27mcm short at 11:00, according to National Grid data. Norwegian exports into Britain stood at 105mcm/day at 10:30, down from 121mcm/day at the same time Friday, Gassco data showed. St Fergus registered the most noticeable decline.
Meanwhile, withdrawals from long-range storage site Rough were down for the hour up to 10:55 because of an unplanned outage, Centrica said. Flows from Barrow South were also closed for unspecified reasons.
Reverse flows on the Interconnector to Bacton remained above 60mcm/day on Monday morning. But despite the NBP's premium to the TTF, daily flows on the BBL pipeline remained at similar levels to last Friday, at about 20mcm/day.
Nominated withdrawals from storage sites stood at about 69mcm in the morning.
German imports from Norway on Monday were at a similar level at 10:30 as on Friday, but Nord Stream flows into the country were higher. NCG Day-ahead gained the least from Friday of the three hubs.
Near-curve prices were all higher in morning trade, with NBP April '13 again leading the way. However, the front month was at a 14.538p/th discount to the Day-ahead.
Production at the Elgin/Franklin field in the British North Sea restarted on 9 March, French producer Total said. Flows from Bacton Seal were unchanged from last week, however. Fionn O'Raghallaigh
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