Natural Gas Summary at European Close: TTF Ticks Up

Front month TTF has traded higher throughout the day as renewed Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea and curtailed pipeline supplies from Norway.

• TTF MAR 24 up 0.7% at 28.55€/MWh
• TTF SUM 24 up 0.4% at 29.05€/MWh
• Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed two separate vessel attacks Tuesday as they targeted US and British vessels. One of the attacks has been confirmed by security firm Ambrey.
• TTF second month implied volatility has fallen to the lowest since Jul 2021 after falling from just below 100% at the start of the year to 68.02% yesterday according to Bloomberg based on ICE data.
• Nominations for Norwegian pipeline supplies to Europe are still curtailed at 302.7mcm/d due to an unplanned outage at the Troll field until Feb. 7.
• Temperatures in NW and central Europe are still forecast to remain above normal this week but drift back to near normal of just below from around Feb 12.
• Net withdrawal rates remain below normal with European natural gas storage at 68.92% full on Feb 4 according to GIE data.
• The total estimated quantity of LNG on tankers that has not unloaded for at least 20 days decreased by 2% last week to 2.86mn tons as of 4 February
• Global weekly LNG imports increased by 2% to 8.5mn tons during 29 January and 5 February amid higher shipments into Japan and South Korea according to BNEF.
• PipeChina will put the Zhangzhou LNG terminal, located in Zhangzhou city in Fujian province, into use in H1 2024, according to OilChem.
• Citigroup cut its estimates for global natural gas prices as a mild winter in all three major markets of North America, Europe and Asia limits demand according to Dow Jones.