Gas prices in Europe are mixed after a sharp decline on Thursday

June 2 (Reuters) – Wholesale gas prices in the Netherlands edged up slightly on Friday, while in the UK they fell thanks to a balanced mix of supply and demand after a sharp decline the day before.

Gas futures at the Dutch TTF hub rose €0.80 to €23.90/MWh at 00:23 ET, hitting a two-year low of €22.94/MWh in the previous session as concerns over supply disruptions to the Norwegian liquefied natural gas weakened.

The price of gas with “tomorrow” settlements on the TTF until 12:22 Moscow time fell by EUR 0.6 to EUR 23.30 per megawatt hour.

The price of gas for “tomorrow” UK settlement with “immediate delivery” fell by 3.00p to 56.00p a term.

Norway’s Equinor has been forced to shut down production at its Hammerfest LNG facility to fix a gas leak, with production scheduled to resume on June 8. However, the company can still load LNG ships from tanks, Equinor said on Friday.

“We may see prices fall on Friday as well, although the market initially opened flat,” analysts at Energi Danmark wrote in a morning note.

After a brief panic over the Hammerfest outage, the market remains largely calm, Auxilione said in a report. – But it is known that the smallest negative news can cause short-term panic. We’ll see what today brings us,” he added.

Despite intensive repair works in Norwegian mining plants, the level of storage in Europe is very high and amounts to 69 percent, and LNG imports are stable, said Refinitiv analyst Tomasz Marcin Kowalski. .

“We expect the stock injections to continue, which should put bearish pressure on the TTF price with tomorrow’s settlement,” Kowalski added.

UK electricity consumption is expected to increase by 4 million cubic meters a day on Monday, while consumption in the Local Distribution Zone (LDZ) fell by 5 million cubic meters a day, according to Refinitiv Eikon.

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(Nora Bulley)