Gas prices for the European market fall amid weak demand and rising supplies from Norway

The wholesale price of gas for the European market continued to fall today due to weak demand and rising supplies from Norway. Shortly before noon, the price of the key front-month gas contract at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) virtual trading hub in the Netherlands was down seven percent, trading below 37 euros (around CZK 900) per megawatt-hour (MWh).

Unusually warm weather is behind the weak demand for gas. „Demand in Europe remains weak, while storage levels are high,“ said Wayne Bryan, an analyst at LSEG. „Temperatures are above normal and are expected to remain so for most of October,“ he added. „Concerns about supplies from Norway have eased in recent days as production has increased,“ he also said.

Tom Marzec-Manser, an analyst at ICIS, wrote on social network X that gas consumption in the European Union and Britain was nine percent lower in September than a year earlier and 20 percent below the average for that month in 2017 to 2021.

According to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), gas storage facilities in the European Union were around 96 percent full on Sunday. In Germany, Europe’s largest gas consumer, storage facilities were also around 96 percent full, while in the Czech Republic they were almost 97 percent full.

Last August, the wholesale price of gas for the European market surged to nearly 350 euros per megawatt-hour amid cuts to Russian supplies. It has since fallen significantly, helped by high supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a relatively mild winter. The price of gas on the exchange is now well below the administratively set cap in the Czech Republic, which stands at CZK 2500 per MWh.

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