Prices increase on Australia LNG strike deadlock, Norway outages – Reuters

WORLD, Set. 11 – Dutch and British gas rose on Monday morning as strikes at Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities are set to start and on extended maintenance outages in Norway.

The Dutch October contract was up by 2.20 euros at 36.70 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0824 GMT, LSEG Eikon data showed.

According to Reuters, Chevron Australia said on Monday it no longer expects to reach a deal with unions and will instead pursue an untested legal strategy to stop industrial action at its Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG sites as unions prepare for full-scale strikes.

Prices in Europe have been volatile amid threatened and actual strike action at Australian LNG facilities although gas contracts remain far off levels of above 100 euros/MWh seen last year amid the loss of Russian gas supplies.

“Europe rarely imports Australian LNG but Asian buyers would need to buy replacement volumes, prompting increased competition between Asia and Europe,” Andy Sommer, head of analysis at Axpo Solutions, said in a monthly market update.

Any prolonged strike action was an upside risk to prices, he added, although the impact on European gas balances would be limited given ample gas inventories, he added.

Gas storage sites in the European Union continue to fill and were last seen 93.7% full, higher than typical for the time of year, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) showed.

The high storages have also absorbed much of the impact of annual maintenance and outages on Norwegian pipeline flows, Sommer said.

This year’s maintenance has seen Norwegian exports hit their lowest value during the last decade, but this failed to trigger bullish price moves, according to LSEG analyst Ulrich Weber.

“Strikes are the only thing keeping shoulder season prices buoyant,” Kaushal Ramesh, head of gas and LNG analytics at Rystad Energy said in market update.

In addition to comfortable European storage, key LNG buyers Japan and South Korea had more nuclear capacity available this winter compared to a year ago to help cover any winter demand surge, he added.

Meanwhile, German industrial production remains 7% below pre-Covid levels, and production in energy intensive sectors is 11% down on the year, Ramesh said.

In the British market, the day-ahead contract was up 6.00 pence at 92.00 pence per therm.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract was up by 0.66 euros at 82.18 euros a tonne.