Prices rise in highly market volatile on Russian supply fears

March 4 (Reuters) - British and Dutch gas prices rose on Friday in a highly volatile market, driven by a cool weather outlook and continued uncertainty over Russian gas supplies to Europe in light of the war in Ukraine.

The British day-ahead gas price rose 71 pence to 421 pence per therm by 1013 GMT, while the within-day contract gained 34 pence to 414 p/therm.

The Dutch day-ahead contract was up 22 euros at 176.50 euros per megawatt hour (MWh).

"The volatile and uncertain geopolitical landscape will continue to drive European gas prices," Refinitiv analyst Wayne Bryan said in a daily research note.

Cold weather in northern and western Europe adds to the upside, analysts at Energi Danmark said in a morning note.

"Today, the market will remain highly volatile," they added.

Meanwhile, an export ban by the Ukrainian government of gas held in the country, including stored gas usually held by Western Europe operators, was not impacting transit flows of Russian gas, analysts at Engie EnergyScan said in a note.

Transit gas flows at the Slovakia-Ukraine border point of Velke Kapusany stood at a strong 882 gigawatt hour per day on Friday, while Russian flows to Europe are estimated 129 GWh/d up week-on-week as long-term contract holders have been nominating more gas since the spot prices jumped, according to analysis from Refinitiv.

The Dutch front-month contract rose by 27 euros to 175 euros/MWh, recovering from a sharp drop in late trading on Thursday.

Thursday's drop was down to a number of factors, analysts said, including profit-taking, comments from Germany's economy minister opposing a ban on Russian energy imports and uncertainty over Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries.

Britain blocked its ports to Russian-associated vessels on Monday and the EU is also considering banning Russian ships from ports, but vessels carrying Russian LNG are still headed to northwest Europe, with some ports continuing to list their arrivals while the tankers themselves are signalling "For Order" status. "Despite the lack of direct sanctions on Russian oil and gas, it becomes more and more difficult to sell anything with a Russian label on it," one analyst told Reuters.

In carbon markets, the European Union benchmark carbon price was up 0.66 euros at 68.01 euros a tonne.