UK GAS-Prices rise on reduced supply

LONDON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - British wholesale gas prices rose on Wednesday morning as gas flows from Norway dropped due to an outage and send-out of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to edge down.

* Day-ahead gas up by 1.00 pence to 47.00 pence per therm at 0930 GMT, while gas for immediate delivery is 0.75 p higher at 47.25 p/therm.

* The March contract is up by 0.93 pence at 47.58 p/therm.

* Norwegian flows to Britain fell to 91 million cubic meters (mcm), a 12 mcm drop from Tuesday, due to an outage at Aasta Hansteen gas field which has cut production by 13 mcm/day on Wednesday and 5 mcm/day on Thursday.

* Imports from Norway are also expected to be reduced due to planned maintenance at Asgard on Feb. 28 and Gullfaks in the first half of March.

* LNG send-out is expected to be 41 mcm/day, a 6 mcm fall from Tuesday.

* Britain's Isle of Grain terminal will receive two LNG tankers by the end of the month, but more arrivals are unlikely in February.

* The spread between day-ahead contracts in Britain and the Netherlands narrowed sharply on Tuesday, keeping flows along the BBL (Shenzhen: 002776.SZ - news) pipeline from Belgium to the UK close to zero because it is more attractive to keep the gas on the continent.

* Despite the lower flows, the UK gas system was oversupplied by 4.7 mcm, as milder weather continued to reduce heating demand.

* Demand in Britain was forecast at 244.5 mcm/ day and total flows at 249.5 mcm/day, National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) data showed.

* Mild weather is expected to remain throughout this week, until temperatures are forecast to drop close to seasonal norms at the beginning of next week, Refinitiv Eikon data shows.

* Peak wind power generation is forecast at 10.2 gigawatts (GW) on Wednesday and will drop to 6.9 GW on Thursday, which is also supporting the day-ahead.

* Strong production from wind turbines typically reduces demand for electricity produced in gas-fired power stations.

* The day-ahead price on the Dutch TTF hub is up 0.25 euro at 18.13 euros per magawatt.

* The benchmark Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) -19 EU carbon contract rose by 0.09 euro to 20.30 euros per tonne. (Reporting by Ekaterina Kravtsova; editing by Nina Chestney)