Prices fall on Trump China comments, oil market drop

Dutch and British wholesale gas prices fell on Friday afternoon after being quite rangebound earlier in day, prompted by fresh concerns over a US-China trade war and falling oil prices.

The benchmark Dutch front-month contract at the TTF hub was down 0.66 euro at 34.26 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 1318 GMT, marking a 10-day low, LSEG data showed.

The July contract fell by 1.18 euros to 34.08 euros/MWh.

The contracts earlier traded largely flat but showed a clearer downward trend in a reaction to comments by US President Donald Trump that China had violated an agreement on tariffs with the United States, a trader said.

In combination with lower oil prices on news that OPEC+ producers could discuss a bigger July output rise this weekend, it was “not great for gas,” the trader added.

The British front-month contract was down 1.06 pence at 83.40 p/therm, while the weekend contract was down 4.00 pence at 79.50 p/therm.

Prices are now largely back to the levels seen before a bout of Norwegian maintenance that started last week, LSEG analyst Saku Jussila said earlier.

Total Norwegian export nominations recovered to 300 million cubic meters/day (mcm/d) on Friday afternoon from 296 mcm/day on Thursday, data from infrastructure operator Gassco showed.

TTF gas prices had increased by almost 10 percent in May driven by concerns around tariffs, weather, and further delay risk for upcoming liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, analysts at Jefferies Equities Research said in monthly report.

“We continue to see a tight market in ‘25, due to higher European injection demand, lost Russian pipeline imports (15bcm/yr), and LNG project delays,” they said.

European gas storages sites are currently 47.2 percent full, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract was down 0.46 euro at 70.47 euros a metric ton.