Lost Pipeline Flows

Countries without Norwegian pipeline gas through September 17

Mobius Intel Brief:

Planned outages from Norway’s annual maintenance season peaked this weekend, cutting total exit nominations from the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) by approximately 54% between August 8 (12.15 bcf) and September 14 (5.56 bcf).

  • Real-time pipeline flows show total exit nominations recovered to 7.26 bcf today (Sep. 17), though deliveries to several European receiving terminals remain completely offline.

European gas in storage (through 09/15) shows most countries reporting >90% full inventories. Injection rates have slowed since early this summer, cutting Europe’s Y/Y storage surplus to 2 bcf.

Danish (73%), Latvian (74%), UK (59%), and Ukrainian (24%) gas in storage trails rest-of-Europe levels (90% - 100%).

Disruption fears have subsided since mid-August as European markets consider:

  1. The relatively immaterial threat of losing Russian pipeline gas through Ukraine and

  2. Generally healthy storage levels as a buffer against unplanned/extended Norwegian maintenance.

While Oct. ‘24 Dutch TTF and UK Natural Gas price action reflects this sentiment on a three-week timescale, day-on-day price action (+4.3%) indicates European markets’ skittish supply sensitivity.

Today’s sensitivity coincides with two recent trends on the newswire:

  • Growing uncertainty about Egyptian LNG demand as rapid domestic production declines will make Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. (EGPC) a net natural gas importer this year.

  • Forced outages at two EDF-operated French nuclear facilities compounded outages on over two dozen other units, cutting operable French nuclear capacity to 69%. EDF-reported planned and forced outages amounted to 17,747 MW of nameplate capacity and 6,234 MW of previously available generation capacity through Sep. 17 — approximately equal to 11.5% and 4.1% of the total French generation stack, respectively.

However, absent extended Norwegian outages or unplanned disruptions to Russian pipeline flows through Ukraine, today’s Dutch TTF and UK Natural Gas reaction will likely give way to >90% full EU gas inventories and the imminent rebound in Norwegian exports.

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