Pricewatch l 11 Jul 2023 I Gas Matters Today

European natural gas prices fell on Monday, with abundant supply once again outweighing fears of heightened competition for LNG with Asia.

Despite the recent concerns about rising demand in Asia, a factor that threatens gas deliveries to Europe, the market remains well-supplied and optimistic that  European storages will be well-filled ahead of the upcoming winter.

In addition, demand within Europe is reported to be very low, with the prices slumping to some of their lowest levels in a month.

TTF settled 9.5% lower to USD 9.74/MMBtu, while NBP plunged 10.2% to USD 9.44/MMBtu.

Spot LNG remained strong, at USD 12.06/MMBtu, placing the benchmark at a significant premium over TTF – at least for now.

Meanwhile, Russia maintains its presence in the European LNG market, with the Spanish government reporting that Russia provided 27.9% of Spain's gas imports in May, up from 11.9% a year earlier. Russia therefore rose to become Spain’s second-largest supplier of gas in May after Algeria.

This came amid heightened debate among EU member states for a need to impose sanctions on Russian LNG imports reaching the bloc’s LNG terminals.

The front-month Henry Hub price rose 3.4% to USD 2.67/MMBtu, bolstered by forecasts for persisting summer heat and the resulting from it high cooling demand.

Front-month futures and indexes at last close with day-on-day changes (click to enlarge): Time references based on London GMT. Brent, WTI, NBP, TTF and EU CO2 data from ICE. Henry Hub, JKM and API2 data from CME. Prices in USD/MMBtu based on exchange rates at last market close. All monetary values rounded to nearest whole cent/penny. Text and graphic copyright © Gas Strategies, all rights.