UK GAS-Supply shortfalls spur rally as Norway outages loom

* Day-ahead price up nearly 1 pence-per-therm

* Norwegian deliveries fall ahead of outages

April 9 (Reuters) - British spot gas prices rose on Thursday, spurred by reduced deliveries from Europe's biggest gas producer Norway ahead of major planned maintenance.

Prices jumped across the board but posted the largest gains on spot contracts, with gas for Friday delivery up 0.95 pence-per-therm, or 2 percent, at 48.55 pence by 0741 GMT.

The rally was spurred by the imminent shutdown of Norway's Statoil (LSE: 0M2Z.L - news) -operated Troll gas field, the country's biggest, from April 10-28, cutting Norwegian gas export capacity by 30 percent over the period.

Gas for instant delivery rose 0.80 pence to 48.25 pence, reflecting immediate shortages caused by the reduction in deliveries via Norway's Langeled pipeline.

"The market doesn't have much direction, it's up today, it was down yesterday, the main driver now is slightly cooler weather and upcoming Norwegian maintenance," a trader with a major German utility said.

"We are waiting to see how supply develops once the maintenance starts, we won't know until next week," he added.

Langeled's nominated flows - which refers to the flows forecast by gas shippers - dropped to 31 million cubic metres/day (mcm) from 54 mcm in the previous session.

Britain's gas network was undersupplied by 7.3 mcm, even with demand estimated at below seasonal average levels of 191.3 mcm, National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) data showed.

The system struggled to bridge gaps caused by lower imports from the Netherlands, itself facing government-imposed production restrictions, but the deficit was partly offset by slightly higher forecast domestic output from the UK Continental Shelf.

Exports through the Britain-Belgium gas interconnector were nominated in-line with previous levels at 20 mcm, draining supply away from UK markets.

Rising British gas prices should slow export rates as the UK closes the gap with premium European markets, analysts at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon said.

Further along the curve, gas for delivery in winter 2015 rose by 0.25 pence to 51.10 pence-per-therm.

In the Netherlands, the day-ahead gas price at the TTF hub was 0.43 euro higher at 22.60 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh).

The benchmark European Union carbon price traded unchanged at 7.16 euros a tonne on ICE Futures Europe. (Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic; Editing by Pravin Char)