Europe Refilling Gas Storage

European LNG prices continued to range trade around EUR 30 rising only 0.2% to EUR 29.65 after reaching a high of EUR 30.22.

• European storage is at record levels for the time of year but the region has begun to refill for the next heating season. Given the shift away from Russian gas, Europe remains nervous of outages whether technical or geopolitically related. Attacks in Russia/Ukraine and the Middle East continue. According to HSBC new supply from Qatar and the US is due over 2025-28, which will improve European energy security and also shift the market into oversupply.
• A very large Malaysian LNG facility is currently experiencing disruptions causing some delays. On the other hand, flows from Norway have picked up.
• US natural gas prices fell 1.7% to $2.34 but are still up 17.6% in May. The decline was driven by futures approaching overbought, according to Bloomberg. The RSI for June is at 64.2 and 70 signals overbought.
• North Asian prices rose 1.4% to be almost 4% higher this month driven by news that the EU may disallow use of its ports for re-exporting Russian LNG.