INTERNATIONAL
Gazprom Export sees natural gas sales on electronic platform drop 90%
Sales of Russian gas Monday on Gazprom Export’s Electronic Sales Platform slumped to 8 million cu m from 82 million cu m at the previous auction, hitting their lowest so far in January.
The sales were all for day-ahead delivery to the Dutch TTF hub and the German GASPOOL and NCG hubs.
Sales on the ESP last week had been high ahead of the first real winter cold snap — on both a day-ahead and month-ahead basis — but temperature forecasts across northwest Europe have been revised down in recent days.
The last few auctions have offered the most varied options for gas sales since the ESP was launched in late September, with day-ahead and balance-of-month gas added to the usual month-ahead or two month-ahead offers.
Overall volumes sold on the ESP since late September 2018 have now risen to 2.13 Bcm.
On Tuesday, gas is being offered for day-ahead and balance-of-month delivery to the TTF, NCG and GASPOOL hubs, and to the Austrian and Slovakian VTPs.
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As well as the prompt gas offers, gas is also still being offered for delivery in February to GASPOOL, TTF, Baumgarten, Arnoldstein and the Austrian and Slovakian VTPs, and for March delivery to GASPOOL.
Gazprom Export has sold gas via the ESP in three waves to date. The first was for delivery of gas in the fourth quarter of 2018, the second for delivery predominantly in January 2019, and now a third wave.