European Gas Futures Gain Amid Deeper Norwegian Supply Cuts

European natural gas prices rose as much as 7.9% after Norway extended capacity reductions at several facilities that help bring the fuel to Europe.

Shipments from the country declined further on Tuesday, with progressively reduced supplies to both the UK’s Easington and Belgium’s Zeebrugge terminals.

The curbs were caused by an incident at the Sleipner field, where the impact is expected to last until Thursday, according to data from network operator Gassco. The outage has also affected the Kollsnes and Nyhamna processing plants in Norway, which have been hit by heavier reductions than what was announced on Monday.

Lower Norwegian flows coincide with a halt of Russia’s key Nord Stream pipeline for planned maintenance, squeezing supply at a time when nations rush to fill storage sites for the winter and a heatwave boosts demand for electricity to cool homes. The UK, where temperatures are well above seasonal norms, has seen higher generation than normal from gas-fired power plants for this time of the year in recent days. The capacity at Interconnector, a pipeline connecting Britain with Belgium, is curbed due to “high ambient temperature,” the operator said.