On Monday, natural gas prices hiked due to outages in LNG facilities in Australia and Malaysia, raising worries about supplies.
Natural gas futures for October delivery increased by 1.63% to $2.18 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on September 02’s Asian afternoon session.
The fuel market is closely monitoring US Freeport LNG, which temporarily shut down. Its close came after a fire safety suppression system’s unexpected activation during routine maintenance.
According to an LNG pricing head, supply concerns help boost natural gas prices in Asia and Europe.
Moreover, the unscheduled downtime at the Australian gas field affected a train that was expected to last into October. As a result, it slowed down production in Malaysia, disrupting loading schedules for the following weeks.
Meanwhile, analysts said that the ongoing heatwaves in Asia sparked buying interest from buyers in Japan and India for spot natural gas volumes.
On the other hand, LNG prices rose most of the week due to ramped-up maintenance in Norway, curbing supplies to Europe and Britain. Also, some outages extended the remaining risks in Russian flows from Ukraine.
Furthermore, an energy strategist mentioned that the situation in European gas markets will still be tense in the coming week. However, geopolitical tensions and delivery issues would provide slight relief to the market in the short term.
Norway Pipelines Backed Natural Gas Price Rebound
European natural gas prices recovered this week on the quotations of supplies for the month advanced at the Dutch TTF Hub. It triggered a higher fuel cost after an outage at the Sudzha gas measuring station.
Despite the issues in the outflow of LNG to Asia contributing to the price hike, Norway pipeline maintenance is the main reason.
The most substantial natural gas supplier stopped due to repairs, significantly dropping exports. It declined to 236 million cubic meters per day on August 30.
