UK GAS-Prices rise on lower domestic supply, cold weather

LONDON, Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 29 (Reuters) - British wholesale gas prices rose on Thursday morning on lower domestic supply and as cold weather continued to boost demand.

Gas for immediate delivery was up 0.15 pence at 51.40 pence per therm at 0932 GMT, while day-ahead gas was 0.60 pence higher at 51.25 p/therm.

"Cold weather continues to boost demand for gas. There could also be some buying ahead of the long weekend for New Year," a gas trader said, referring to Jan. 2 being a public holiday in Britain.

National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) data shows demand is forecast to be 35 mcm above the seasonal norm at around 312 million cubic metres (mcm).

UK Continental Shelf supply is 12 mcm lower at 159 mcm due to outages at the Shell St Fergus terminal, Engie (LSE: 0LD0.L - news) 's Cygnus offshore facilities, North Morecambe gas sub-terminal and Perenco Bacton terminal.

Despite the lower UKCS flows, Britain's gas system was around 4 mcm oversupplied with flows at 316 mcm/day, National Grid's website shows.

Flows from Norway through the Langeled pipeline are at 74 mcm, while supply via the BBL (Shenzhen: 002776.SZ - news) pipeline from the Netherlands has risen to 20 mcm, from as low as 5 mcm so far this week.

Imports through the InterconnectorUK are also strong at 33 mcm.

In the European Union's carbon market, the benchmark Dec-17 carbon contract was 0.03 euro lower at 6.31 euros a tonne.

In the Netherlands, the day-ahead gas price at the TTF hub was 0.47 euro higher at 19.25 euros per megawatt hour. (Reporting by Nina Chestney)