Prices maintained their uptrend

European spot gas prices increased slightly yesterday, supported mainly by lower-than-expected Norwegian supply. Indeed, the delayed end to maintenance at the Troll field reduced Norwegian gas export availability by 35 mm cm/day, limiting Norwegian flows to 210 mm cm/day on average yesterday (up however compared to the 150 mm cm/day of Wednesday). As for Russian flows, they rebounded to 323 mm cm/day on average, compared to 317 mm cm/day on Wednesday.

The increase was stronger for curve prices as the rise in Asia JKM prices and in parity prices with coal for power generation (both EUA and coal prices were up) lent them support.

Note that the developer of Nord Stream 2 said yesterday in a statement that the offshore section of the first 27.5 Bcm/year string of the pipeline was now “technically completed”, and that pre-commissioning work ahead of the filling with gas is to begin on June 11.