UK GAS-Price rally drives Dutch front-month to record high

By Nina Chestney

LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - British and Dutch wholesale gas
prices continued to rise on Thursday morning, amid a global gas
rally, as maintenance outages, high liquefied natural gas
prices, low storage and less pipeline supply stoked buying.

The Dutch August contract reached a record high
since Refinitiv Eikon records began of 36.29 euros per megawatt
hour by 0923 GMT.

UK gas for next week rose by nearly 30% to
91.00 p/therm. The UK August contract was yet to
trade.

Global prices for gas are at multi-year high, with high
summer temperatures driving up demand for power generation in
the northern hemisphere for air conditioning and as traders in
some regions replenish stocks ahead of winter.

Prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes delivered in
Asia <LNG-AS> rose above $13 per million British thermal units
(mmBtu) this week, the highest for this time of the year since
2013.

High prices for LNG in Asia mean Dutch TTF hub prices need
to rise to compete for cargoes to come to Europe.

Currently, there are fewer cargoes scheduled for north-west
Europe than normal.

"LNG send-out was at 7.5 million cubic metres (mcm) this
morning and South Hook terminal's profile now looks to be at 5
mcm/d for the coming month which is bullish," said Wayne Bryan,
gas analyst at Refinitiv.

Added to that, some UK gas outages could be extended.

This week, Gazprom did not book any additional volumes via
Ukraine for July despite planned maintenance on the Nord Stream
and Yamal-Europe pipelines, meaning less pipeline supply to
Europe.

The benchmark Dec-21 EU carbon contract was 1.87
euros higher at 58.24 euros a tonne, having earlier touched a
record high of 58.49 euros/tonne.
(Reporting by Nina Chestney, editing by Susanna Twidale)