November gas prices hit four year low

Prices on the UK’s wholesale gas market dropped to their lowest for November. On Friday, gas for November 2014 traded at 51.60 pence per therm (p/th), according to analysts at ICIS. That’s ten […]

Prices on the UK’s wholesale gas market dropped to their lowest for November.

On Friday, gas for November 2014 traded at 51.60 pence per therm (p/th), according to analysts at ICIS.

That’s ten pence per therm cheaper than the 61.625p/th price in November 2011. The prices are even lower than last November’s, when they expired at 66.900p/th.

There’s still a way to go until prices drop to November 2010 levels of around 46p/th.

Analysts reckon this is down to the UK’s “greater reserves” of gas ahead of the winter, plus a little pressure from the tying up of the Russia-Ukraine gas deal.

Tom Marzec-Manser, European analyst at the price reference agency ICIS said: “Storage levels in Britain are close to maximum.”

Last week the UK’s largest store, Centrica’s Rough storage, hit record “fullness”.

He added: “We have been able to increase our storage stocks a lot more than usual as last winter was relatively mild. So when we started to refill them it was from a much higher base. Also Asian demand for LNG [liquefied natural gas] is beginning to wane, so a little more is being delivered to Britain and the European mainland.”

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