European prices up again, reducing their discount compared to Asian prices

European gas prices maintained their bullish momentum yesterday. Norwegian supply rebounded to 341 mm cm/day on average (compared to 331 mm cm/day on Wednesday) after the unplanned outage at the Oseberg field was fixed, but ongoing low Russian flows (stabilizing at 185 mm cm/day on average) and colder weather remained a concern. Asia JKM prices were slightly down (-1.87% on the spot, to €94.868/MWh; -0.16% for the February 2022 contract, to €102.960/MWh), which led to a narrowing of their premium against European prices.

After the meeting with coal mining companies which finally took place yesterday, Indonesia officials said discussions will be continued this Friday with a decision expected on the same day.

At the close, NBP ICE February 2022 prices increased by 11.750 p/th day-on-day (+5.26%), to 235.200 p/th. TTF ICE February 2022 prices were up by €4.98 (+5.44%), closing at €96.502/MWh. On the far curve, TTF ICE Cal 2023 prices were up by €1.30 (+2.62%), closing at €50.753/MWh.

TTF ICE February 2022 prices closed yesterday almost at the 20-day Low level. They are rising again this morning, above this level, continuing their “normalization” process. Their new trading range seems now to be between the 20-day Low and the 20-day average. The decision on the Indonesia coal export ban could impact Asia LNG imports and decide in which part of this range they will trade.