Prices drop as warm weather, storage filling offset LNG concerns

May 8 - Dutch and British wholesale gas prices fell on Wednesday morning, with warm weather and the restocking of storages in Europe offsetting concerns over liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies.

The benchmark front-month contract at the Dutch TTF hub eased by 0.27 euro to 30.35 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0848 GMT, according to LSEG data.

The Dutch day-ahead contract was down 1.05 euros at 30.35 euros/MWh.

In the British market, the day-ahead price was down 1.80 pence at 74.00 pence per therm, and the within-day contract fell by 2.50 pence to 74.00 p/therm.

"Largely, I think the market was over priced to the upside and given (storages) are 64% full with mild weather there is no panic right now," a trader said.

Norwegian pipeline flows, albeit lower, were not a concern right now, he added.

Norwegian pipeline supplies have been flowing at a rate of around 290-295 million cubic metres (mcm) per day in May amid maintenance, down from flows of 350 mcm/day seen earlier in the year, Gassco data showed.

North Asia LNG prices have risen this week after Chevron rescheduled the delivery of some cargoes to buyers in Asia due to an outage at its Gorgon facility in Australia, Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ bank said in a daily note.

The affected production train could be offline for up to five weeks, at a time of stronger demand during a heatwave across the regions, he added.

Still, "European gas prices failed to follow Asian prices higher amid healthy storage levels", Hynes said.

The two markets compete for LNG cargoes on a global level, especially if supply in one region is curtailed.

Meanwhile, gas demand is set to drop amid a rise in temperatures in Europe and despite low wind power generation until the end of the week, LSEG analyst Ulrich Weber said.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract was down by 0.39 euros at 70.59 euros per metric ton. (Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; editing by Nina Chestney)