UK Seen Importing More Norwegian Gas This Winter-National Grid

1st Jul 2010 17:17

LONDON (Dow Jones)--U.K. continental shelf gas supplies for the coming winter are expected to about 9% lower than last winter due to declining reserves with the country likely to import more piped gas from Norway this winter, National Grid PLC (NGG) said Thursday in its winter consultation report. Flows of liquefied natural gas could also be higher than last year. National Grid forecasts average flows of 60 million cubic meters a day, with increased capacity at the South Hook and Grain terminals taking import capacity to over 140 mcm/day. "As with last winter, there are reasons to be more optimistic about LNG deliveries to the U.K. due to a combination of increased LNG production, limited recovery of global demand and relatively high European gas prices," National Grid said. Nonstorage gas supplies for next winter are forecast to be between 342 mcm/day to 412 mcm/day with a base case of 367 mcm/day. This is comparable to last winter's actual level of nonstorage supplies. Gas is the fuel most likely to be used for baseload power generation over the winter if fuel prices follow the pattern of the past two winters when coal prices were higher than gas. Meanwhile, electricity generation is expected to have a comfortable surplus to demand as consumption has yet to recover to pre-recession levels and several new gas-fired power stations have either completed commissioning or are due to start or have begun commissioning between now and winter. National Grid estimates operational generation capability at 77.1 gigawatts at the start of winter, which is calculated to deliver 66.2 GW of expected availability. The deadline for responses to the consultation is Aug. 23 and the final report will be released in the week starting Oct. 4. -By Selina Williams, Dow Jones Newswires +44 207 842 9262; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 01, 2010 12:17 ET (16:17 GMT)