UK wholesale natural gas prices climbed across the board in early Tuesday trade with a combination of higher demand expectations and recovering Brent Crude pricing led to higher NBP contracts.
The gains in the spot market came despite the UK gas system seen 20 million cu m long at 10:00 am according to National Grid, as physical flows of 266 million cu m/d were ahead of demand forecasts of 246 million cu m.
However, Grid forecasts demand to climb to 275 million cu m Wednesday and over 290 million cu m for both Thursday and Friday.
Within-day and day-ahead were seen trading at 46.10 pence/therm and 46.90 p/th respectively Tuesday morning in comparison to the day-ahead assessment of 45.95 p/th Monday.
Norwegian gas flows into the UK National Transmission System were running at 122 million cu m/d Tuesday morning, split between Easington and St. Fergus at 71 million cu m/d and 51 million cu m/d respectively according to Norwegian gas operator Gassco.
UK indigenous gas production is set to remain close to the 100 million cu m mark Tuesday according to Platts Analytics' Eclipse Energy, with the restart of the North Morecambe sub-terminal due at 13:00 Tuesday after having been offline since mid-July.
Imports from the Netherlands through the BBL pipeline were running at 26 million cu m/d Tuesday morning, slightly higher than Monday afternoon levels.
Regasification from the South Hook LNG terminal were flat day on day at 8 million cu m/d -- the Al Mafyar is a potential arrival at the facility later in the week.
IUK flows look set to flip Tuesday with IUK 10:00 am export nominations at 4 million cu m.
Contracts on the NBP curve rose steadily in early Tuesday trade with the bullish spot allied to a recovery in oil prices boosting bullish sentiment.
Front-month December was seen trading at 49.59 p/th after having hit as high as 49.80 p/th -- Q1 17 and Summer 17 were changing hands at 49.50 p/th and 41.50 p/th respectively.
