UK GAS-Prices rise as North Sea outage reduces supply

LONDON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - British wholesale gas prices rose on Monday after an unplanned outage reduced supplies from the North Sea in an otherwise stable market.

* Within-day gas price up 0.70 pence at 47.50 p/therm by 0840 GMT.

* Day-ahead gas price up 0.68 p at 47.58 p/therm.

* Gas flows from the UK Continental Shelf were expected to be 13 million cubic metres (mcm) lower at 125 mcm.

* An unplanned outage at the Elgin-Franklin fields has stopped exports and reduced supplies by 10 mcm, according to a REMIT notice.

* Problems concerning power generation mean a restart to operations is not expected until Monday evening, according to the notice.

* The blip in supply occurred in an otherwise stable market with flows from Norway even and ample gas in storage to make up for any undersupply, according to Refinitiv gas analysts.

* A tight spread between British and Dutch wholesale gas prices has kept flows along the BBL (Shenzhen: 002776.SZ - news) pipeline to the UK at a minimum because it is more attractive to keep the gas on the continent.

* But outflows from British liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals remain much stronger than in previous years.

* An LNG cargo from Cameroon, the first since production there began last June, arrived over the weekend at the Isle of Grain and two more tankers are discharging cargoes.

* On the demand side, the residential demand forecast was reduced by 19 mcm for Monday to 187 mcm as temperature forecasts rose 0.9 degree Celsius to 7.8 degrees on average.

* Gas for power demand was also seen lower, with the forecast cut by 14 mcm to 51 mcm.

* That reflected higher peak wind generation, which is seen rising to 9.8 gigawatts (GW), from around 7.9 GW on Friday. Higher wind generation tends to reduce gas-for-power demand.

* An unplanned outage at the Hinkley Point B-8 reactor brought total nuclear offline power capacity to just over 3 GW.

* March contract was flat at 47.70 p/therm.

* Day-ahead gas price at the Dutch TTF hub had yet to trade on Monday, having closed at 17.95 euros per megawatt hour.

* The benchmark Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) -19 EU carbon contract was 0.1 euro higher at 20.52 euros per tonne. (Reporting By Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Dale Hudson)