The week started off with a bang, following an outage on Sunday that curtailed Norwegian gas exports to the UK and Europe resulting in gas prices reaching their highest level since December 2023. Gassco attributed it to a crack in a two-inch pipeline onboard Equinor’s offshore Sleipner Riser platform. Since then, prices have reversed to levels seen last week following news that outage would last till Friday morning, easing supply crunch concerns. Today Gassco have also announced the ramp-up plan will see an available volume of 35 mcm/day on Friday from Norway’s Nyhamna processing plant returning via the Langeled pipeline, some 44% of its overall 79.8 mcm capacity. The outage not only drove up prices in the UK and Europe but also in the United States and Asia on concerns it could tighten supply at a time of worries over remaining Russian volumes and an Asian heatwave increasing competition for LNG. Markets are now back in the wait and see category but what this week has shown is that the market remains very nervous regarding supply risks and our increasing reliance on global markets since the energy crisis has made us susceptible to increased volatility.
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