Gas Summary at European Close: TTF Jumps

TTF front month has reversed earlier losses and is trading higher amid potential supply disruptions as lower feedgas flows to US LNG export terminals suggest seasonal maintenance, while industrial action at Australian LNG facilities has ended. TTF has trended up during the week, rising by around 3.6€/MWh since Sep. 15.

• TTF OCT 23 up 2.5% at 40.1€/MWh
• TTF WIN 23 up 1.1% at 47.68€/MWh
• Outages at US LNG export terminals LNG are adding to supply risks. Cove Point LNG has halted for four weeks to undergo seasonal maintenance. Feedgas intake into Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal dropped yesterday to 3.6bcf/d but has since recovered slightly today back towards normal at 4.3bcf/d.
• Sendout to Europe was back up to 297mcm/d on 20 Sep after the drop last weekend but still below the average of 365mcm/d in Sep 2022. Two LNG vessels have delayed arrival into NW Europe until the middle of October as a sign of increasing use of floating storage.
• Norwegian pipeline supplies to Europe are today nominated up to 224.9mcm/d with the restart of the Troll field after maintenance but a number of smaller facilities are still seeing delayed returns.
• Chevron and the unions reached an agreement to end strikes at the Wheatstone and Gorgon LNG facilities in Australia.
• Norwegian seasonal gas maintenance is still ongoing and a next round of maintenances at smaller fields and facilities will begin next week, further restricting supplies to Europe.
• European natural gas storage is up to 94.40% full on 20 Sep amid slow injection rates according to GIE data and compared to the five year average of 85.5%.
• Turkey and Israel will soon begin taking joint steps in drilling projects, President Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday adding the two nations would operate energy networks to Europe through Turkey.
• Japan’s city gas utilities could sell part of their stockpiles to power utilities in the event of fuel shortages. LNG storage at major Japanese power utilities continued its downward trend this week to just 1.62m tons on 17 Sep and 21.4% below the five-year average.
• The CEO of Ukraine’s gas TSO, Dmytro Lyppa, says the war in Ukraine has failed to deter European gas traders from using the country’s gas storage and transportation infrastructure according to Montel.