Short term gas and power prices have gone “slightly higher” this morning against last night’s close as a result of a short gas system.

That’s according to the daily market report from npower, which suggests the gas system was around six million cubic meters short this morning due to a reduction in Norwegian flows by around 30 million cubic meters.

Looking at prices, Optimisation Desk Manager Ben Spry said: “Prices are only slightly up and this is because Rough storage facility has started flowing this morning and that’s compensated for some of those losses we’ve seen from Norway.”

Demand on the power side is “relatively stable” despite wind generation dropping below 2GW as that’s been picked up by strong flows from France and the Netherlands via the interconnectors and “slightly higher” Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) generation, he said.

“That short gas system is just adding a bit of premium into the short term power and gas market”, he added.

Mr Spry went on: “If we move slightly beyond that on to the curve, again we’ve seen a little bit of premium come into the gas market and this is as Brent oil goes back above $108 a barrel. This is on the back of the support coming from the situation in Ukraine over Crimea and the tensions between Russia and the West and in particular the US so keep an eye on how the geopolitical situation evolves over the course of today.”

On the flip side however, something that’s pressuring Brent oil is weaker data out of China and “concerns about what that will do to their demand going forward for other commodities including Brent oil”, he said.

Mr Spry also suggests keeping an eye on crude stock data out of the US this afternoon and see “what that does to the curve power and gas prices”.

Coal prices remain “relatively stable” this morning as do carbon so that’s not having too much of an impact on the power or gas curves, he added.