Natural gas prices were up on Friday after the start of strike action at Chevron’s Australian LNG plants.
As a result, TTF advanced 5.4% to USD 10.83/MMBtu, while NBP soared 6.7% to USD 10.59/MMBtu. Asian LNG benchmark JKM remained resilient and showed only a minor 0.1% rise to USD 13.33/MMBtu.
Energi Danmark commented: “In the short-term, the overall effect is deemed rather limited, though. At the same time, maintenance at Norwegian infrastructure is still ongoing, but unavailability of supply is set to decrease this week. Some of the gains were recovered during the session, but we expect the market to remain on edge [on Monday].”
Traders are now looking to Tuesday, as Australia’s Fair Work Commission will hear Chevron’s cases, after it confirmed to Bloomberg that it requested the authority’s intervention to solve the dispute with the labour unions.
Troll, Norway’s largest gas field, is entering its third week of works and is due to encounter more capacity restrictions than initially anticipated, with supply risks persisting to keep pressure on European gas markers.
In the US, Henry Hub advanced by 1% to USD 2.61/MMBtu, as traders weighed strong near-term demand against looming autumn weather and strong supplies.
Meanwhile, power prices in Texas soared on Friday with electric use expected to hit a record high on another sweltering heat wave. So far this week, ERCOT has passed several reliability tests after urging homes and businesses to conserve energy for a second day in a row last Thursday.
Next-day power prices at the ERCOT North hub, which includes Dallas, jumped to a two-week high of USD 611/MWh for Friday from USD 537/MWh for Thursday, which compares with an average of USD 101/MWh so far this year and USD 78/MWh in 2022.
Front-month futures and indexes at last close with day-on-day changes (click to enlarge): 
Time references based on London GMT. Brent, WTI, NBP, TTF and EU CO2 data from ICE. Henry Hub, JKM and API2 data from CME. Prices in USD/MMBtu based on exchange rates at last market close. All monetary values rounded to nearest whole cent/penny. Text and graphic copyright © Gas Strategies, all rights.
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