UK GAS-Prices rise on UK outages and winter supply concerns

Sept 9 (Reuters) - British wholesale gas prices continued to
climb on Thursday as British production outages balanced
stronger Norwegian gas flows while concerns lingered over winter
supply.

* The within-day contract was up 1.9 pence at
138.5
pence per therm by 0857 GMT.

* The day-ahead contract was up 1 pence at 138
p/therm

* Norwegian gas flows through the Langeled pipeline were up
5
million cubic meters (mcm) per day, but UK domestic production
was 9 mcm/day down because of unplanned outages, Refinitiv
analyst Xun Peng said in a morning report.

* Britain's gas system was forecast to be 7 mcm/day
under-supplied
on Thursday morning, with demand forecast at 135 mcm/day and
supply at 128 mcm/day, National Grid data showed.

* Peak wind power generation was expected to drop to 2.6
gigawatts
(GW) on Friday from 4.2 GW on Thursday, out of a total metered
capacity of nearly 20 GW, Elexon data showed.

* Low wind power output typically increases demand for gas
from
power plants.

* Concern over supply for the coming winter remained the key
bullish market driver, Peng said.

* The winter contract was up by 1.52 pence at
143.25
p/therm.

* The inventory of storage in northwest Europe controlled by
Russian producer Gazprom stood at 28 terawatt hours (TWh), or
just 23% full, "overwhelmingly" lower than in 2019 and 2020,
Peng said.

* This compared with Non-Gazprom storage of 312 TWh, or 78%
full.
That is on a par with 2018 but roughly 77 TWh lower than 2020
and 2019.

* There was also a risk that flows of Russian gas via the
Polish-German border point of Mallnow could drop close to zero
from Oct. 1, the start of the 2021 gas year, if no long-term
capacity is booked at a Sept. 20 auction, Peng said.

* The October gas price at the Dutch TTF hub
rose by
0.47 euros to 55.60 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) after touching
a record high of 55.88 euros/MWh.

* "Prices keep on climbing but the balance doesn't improve,
so
it's hard to see an end to it," one trader said.

* The benchmark Dec-21 EU carbon contract was down
0.35
euros at 62.10 euros a tonne.

* The benchmark Dec-21 British carbon contract was
down
0.21 pounds at 53.50 pounds a tonne.
(Reporting by Nora Buli
Editing by David Goodman)

National Grid