UK GAS-Supply shortages lift prices to highest level since 2013

Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 12 (Reuters) - British wholesale gas prices reached their highest level in four years on Tuesday as supplies were hit by an explosion at Austria's Baumgarten gas hub, a shutdown at a UK gas pipeline and an outage at Norway's largest gas field Troll, traders said. * Day-ahead gas was up 11.75 pence at 76.00 pence per therm at 1010 GMT. * Within-day gas rose by 12.00 pence to 80.00 pence per therm. * "It started with some Troll reductions after the Brent pipeline was already driving up the curve, and then Baumgarten exploded," said a British gas trader, explaining the double-digit increase in British gas prices. * A fire broke out at Baumgarten, Austria's main gas transfer hub on Tuesday, with police reporting an explosion and several people injured. The effect on gas deliveries were not immediately clear, oil company OMV (IOB: 0MKH.IL - news) said. * The North Sea Forties pipeline, which carries around 450,000 barrels per day of Forties crude oil and natural gas to Britain, was shut down after a minor leak. Operator Ineos said repair work would likely take weeks. * "The impact on the UK looks to be around 40 mcm/day - or about one third of total UK continental shelf production," said Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news) analyst Oliver Sanderson. * Gas supply from Norway to Britain on Tuesday fell to 127 mcm/day, down 7 mcm/day from Monday. * An unexpected outage at Norway's biggest gas field, Troll, has shortened the country's capacity by 32.00 mcm. The outage is expected to finish during the day, gas system operator Gassco said. * Britain's gas system was oversupplied by 2.6 million cubic metres (mcm), with demand forecast at 371.6 mcm and supply at 374.2 mcm/day, National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) data showed. * Average temperatures on Tuesday could reach 3 degrees Celsius in southern Britain and are forecast to rise to 8 degrees C on Wednesday, data from Britain's Met Office showed. * However, temperatures are expected to drop again to around 5 degrees C from Friday. * The January contract was up 10.64 pence at 73.44 pence/therm. * In the Dutch gas market, the day-ahead gas price at the TTF hub rose by 1.48 euro to 23.25 euros per megawatt hour (MWh). * The benchmark Dec-17 EU carbon contract was up by 0.18 euro to 7.38 euros a tonne. * Thomson Reuters analyst view: http://emea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageid=united-kingdom-gas (Reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos in Oslo; Editing by Susan Fenton)