Norwegian gas flows to Europe lowest since 2019

Market: Natural gas
04/09/23

Norwegian gas flows to Europe through the Gassco network fell to a four-year low at the weekend because of maintenance and unplanned outages at Norwegian fields.

Deliveries to Europe totalled 128.1mn m³ on Sunday, according to final Gassco nominations. This is the lowest since 128mn m³ on 8 September 2019.

Planned maintenance is likely to have resulted in extremely low gas flows at the weekend. The giant Troll field has been offline since 26 August, as has the 153mn m³/d Kollsnes plant where Troll gas is processed. The Visund and Kvitebjorn fields, which send gas to Kollsnes, have also been offline.

But unplanned work cut supply further. The 25.8mn m³/d Aasta Hansteen field has been offline since 2 September for corrective maintenance. It is scheduled to begin ramping up on 6 September, but Gassco lists the outage as of "uncertain duration."

And unplanned maintenance has left the 6mn m³/d Dvalin field offline on 2-4 September.

Gassco today announced that the complete outage at Troll will be extended by one day, with the field now scheduled to return at the beginning of the 8 September gas day. Availability will be limited on the 9 September and 10 September gas days, as previously expected.

But a complete outage at the 24.5mn m³/d Ormen Lange field, previously scheduled for 8-28 September, has been pushed back by a day, which could offset lower Troll deliveries.

On Monday afternoon, flows for the day were nominated to pick up slightly to 131.8mn m³. But this would still be the second lowest for any day since the beginning of 2021.

The TTF front-month price opened Monday on the Intercontinental Exchange at €37.50/MWh, up from Argus' 1 September assessment of €35.86/MWh. But it fell in the first hours of the day and traded below the most recent assessment during the afternoon.

Demand in Europe could be limited in the coming weeks by full storage sites cutting injection demand and hot weather in the northwest reducing local distribution zone consumption. And flows could step up in the coming days, as planned maintenance winds down (see graph).

By Rhys Talbot

Norwegian scheduled production unavailability

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