Within-day gas was up just 0.10 p/th to 40.70 p/th by midday London time,while gas for next day delivery had risen by the same amount, changing hands at 40.60 p/th.
"Prices were up slightly today. Langeled is back but Bacton Shell decided to reduce flows, so what is given with one hand was taken back by the other,"a trader said.
National Grid showed that, despite the fluctuating flows, the system remained well balanced Friday. It forecast supplies at 238 million cubic meters/day, against demand at 237 million cu m/d.
Flows on the Langeled pipeline were up by around 20 million cu m/d to 40 million cu m/d at open, despite maintenance at Norway's Karsto terminal continuing.
However, overnight flows of Bacton Shell gas fell to 5 million cu m/d unexpectedly from 30 million cu m/d in the previous session, which traders said was for a period of testing.
Elsewhere the system looked fairly stable, with St Fergus Mobil flows back to 23 million cu m/d after a short period of planned maintenance Thursday which had cut flows to zero.
Flows of LNG also appeared healthy with Dragon flowing 10 million cu m/d,up from zero in the previous session and South Hook LNG at a rate of 25 million cu m/d. Isle of Grain continued to flow LNG at an increased rate of 13 million cu m/d Friday morning.
Surprisingly the Nigerian LNG ship Imo, which was scheduled to arrive at the UK's Dragon LNG terminal August 23, has been diverted to Brazil by Petrobras and docked Wednesday at either Guanabara Bay in Rio or Port Pecem in the northeast of the country.
The Imo carries some 148,452 cubic meters of gas and was loaded at Nigeria's Bonny Island liquefaction plant. The Nigerian ship would have been the latest in a string of vessels to arrive from the West African country.
The delayed return of the Transitgas pipeline continued to limit exports on the UK-Belgium Interconnector, forecast to export 33 million cu m of gas from the UK Friday, its website shows, down from 42 million cu m/d at the same time in the previous session.
The latest Customweather forecast showed temperatures in London, expected to rise to 2 degree Celsius above the seasonal norm Saturday in a range of 15-24 degrees Celsius, up from levels of 1 C above at present.
On the curve the front-month contract was up a little more aggressively than the prompt, rising 0.65 p/th to 39 p/th by midday and further forward gas for delivery in Winter 2010 was up 0.90 p/th at 48 p/th.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1403616.html
