Mid-Day Gas Summary: TTF Erases Gains

Front month TTF has erased earlier gains to trade lower on the day as upside risks from recent attacks on Ukraine gas infrastructure and increase buying interest in Asia are weighed against steady supplies and high end of season storage levels.

• TTF APR 24 down 0.7% at 26.95€/MWh
• TTF SUM 24 down 0.5% at 27.28€/MWh
• Temperatures across much of Europe are forecast to remain above normal throughout most of the two week outlook.
• Norwegian pipeline supplies to Europe are nominated up at 347.1mcm/d today. Flows could dip again in early April amid planned outages at Karsto reducing capacity by 19.6mcm/d from Apr. 1.
• European LNG sendout increased on the day to 323mcm/d on Mar. 25 but remains just below the average seen through the month and well below the average of 413mcm/d in March 2023.
• European gas storage was at 59.03% full on Mar. 25 according to GIE after an increase in withdrawals but is still high compared to the seasonal five year average of 41.6%.
• Ukraine is aiming to reassure European natural gas traders that it is still safe to store gas in the country’s natural gas reserves after Russia’s attack on one of the sites on Sunday.
• LNG stockpiles held by Japanese utilities declined by 5% last week to 1.52mn tons as of 24 March, data released by the trade ministry showed.
• Japan's Osaka Gas doesn’t expect any significantly impact on its LNG supply and demand balance from the partial shutdown of US Freeport LNG's facilities according to Reuters.
• LNG demand is expected to grow through to 2040, according to Mehdi Chennoufi, head of global LNG origination and market development at Shell.
• Russian natural gas production increased by 10% y/y in January and February to 131.5bcm, according to Kommersant sources.