A sharp drop in wind forecasts helped create the most eye-catching movement in markets over the last week, with the front month gas contract hitting a one-month high on Tuesday 4th November amid rapidly falling expectations for wind output. Forecasts ahead of our last update showed wind generation well above seasonal normal up to the end of the run on 11th November. Updated forecasts on the morning of 4th November identified a forthcoming slump in wind output over the weekend of 8th & 9th November, with gas-for-power demand increasing significantly as a result.
Temperatures across Europe were more favourable to bears in the market, with the North West of the continent expected to experience temperatures comfortably above seasonal normal well into mid-November. Those warmer temperatures, combined with ample LNG flows, supported net injections into gas storage in the UK across Europe, with EU storage fullness hitting 83% on 3rd November.
October marked new highs in LNG production. LNG exports were up 18% year-on-year as of the end of the month, with exports at record highs of 1.8bcm per day. October also saw the US become the first country to export 10 million tonnes of LNG in a single month. Ramp up of production at Plaquemines and Corpus Christi 3 supported this record-breaking output, though the imminent launch of Golden Pass LNG on the Texas coast all-but guarantees the record will be surpassed in the near future.
The heaviest-impact outages related on the Norwegian continental shelf were also completed over the last week, with Gassco’s schedules now showing no more than 14mcm/d offline over the coming week, and no planned outages totalling more than 47mcm/d between now and the end of the Winter 25/26 season.
