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.”