LONDON: The NBP within-day and day-ahead contracts were seen trading at 80 pence/therm and 79.80 p/th respectively Monday morning, much higher than the working-days-next-week assessment of 54.075 p/th from last Friday.
Moreover, the working-days-next-week contract for March 19-23 delivery was dealt at 85 p/th.
The firm gains on the spot market filtered through to the NBP prompt and curve, with the NBP April contract seen trading as high as 56.50 p/th and the Summer 18 contract at 46.80 p/th.
TTF spot contracts found support from weaker Dutch production, which fell back to 86 million cu m on Saturday after having averaged 128 million cu m/d during the March 1-9 period, data from S&P Global Platts Analytics showed.
Imports from the Netherlands through the BBL pipeline were running at 17 million cu m/d Monday morning — imports from Belgium via the Interconnector were nominated at 32 million cu m, according to IUK 10:00 am figures.
In addition to the firmer Continental European spot pricing, the UK’s Met Office said in its medium-term outlook that “it may become rather cold for most” in the latter part of March and that April will “start unsettled and rather cold.”