
Plugged In: the energy news podcast
Coming from the heart of the Montel newsroom, Editor-in-Chief, Snjolfur Richard Sverrisson and his team of journalists explore the news headlines in the energy sector, bringing you in depth analysis of the industry’s leading stories each week.
Richard speaks to experts, analysts, regulators, and senior business leaders to the examine not just the what, but the why behind the decisions directing the markets and shaping the global transition to a green economy.
New episodes are available every Friday.
Plugged In: the energy news podcast
February freeze?
Some meteorologists may be playing down the risk of a return of 2018's "Beast from the East", but this winter is far from over and with it the potential for further gas and power price spikes. This week's show discusses the reasons for the recent price surges in Asian LNG, the outlook for the coming months and whether the market became too blase about cheap gas.
Host:
- Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel
Guest:
• Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv
News drives markets, and every day Montel's experience reporters are on top of the stories that shape European market developments. Can you afford to miss out? Go to monte news.com for the latest price driving stories and a free trial.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Hello listeners and welcome to the Montel Weekly podcast, bringing Energy Matters in an informal setting. This week, the topic is gas. Global gas prices surged at the start of the year and remained very strong as Asia and Europe was caught short by a cold snap. The tightness in supply to talk us through a tumultuous year, current market developments and the outlook to the summer is our old friend Wayne Bryan of Refinitiv. A warm welcome to you, Wayne.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Hi. Good afternoon, Richard. And yeah, it's always good to be back. Hope all is well with you.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:All is good, and always a pleasure and an honor to have you on the pod, Wayne. But before we get into to gas matters I'd like to ask how are you doing? How's life in London for you at the moment, Wayne?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:It's not too bad. We're in, tier four. So everything's closed, but luckily work's very busy and these recent market movements have helped. So lots of work to be doing. So yeah, I'm just keeping busy with work and just hoping for better times, which will come at some point. And yeah, hopefully back in the office in a couple of months.'cause that would be nice. It's been nearly a year since we were put into remote work and yeah. Apart from that, I'm healthy and well, and family's all good. So yeah, no complaints.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Good to hear. Tears for fears as it were. Yeah. But Wayne, I also hear there's a rumor going around that you, you share a hairdresser with some celebrities.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:What do you always catch me off guard. The only Louis Hamilton, maybe that's it. Similar. Same. Hairdresser in London. Yeah, but that's purely by chance. I met him once and that's about as far as it gets really.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:That was not in tier four then?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:No, actually just before actually. Yeah. Yeah, just before. So yeah, luckily just I got, I managed to get a trip there just before they got shut down again, and probably won't be open till March. So I'll be reaching for my own clippers, et cetera.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Excellent. I'm sure Lewis is a very nice bloke as well. But enough about tiers and celebrities. But let's get into the nitty gritty about the gas market, Wayne. Talk us through the current price developments. Is it all about the weather, the cold snap, both in Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Spain, and also Northeast Asia.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah. As we saw prices hit in the UK's case, I think the front month was an all time high. DTF. Front month was obviously as well, also a couple of year high Asian LNG prices. We all know how high they went. So I think as we saw that confluence of bullish events, whether it be Panama Canal issues supply issues from certain LNG, like Hammerfest, et cetera, and other outages, lower Australian supply. Then we obviously get the cold snaps, which caught people short as we could see by the price movement. And then what we saw towards that as well was we saw like a short squeeze. I think that one day when the market went up sort 20%, you looked at that and thought is that really fair value? Is the, are we really at these levels? And then the next day, obviously you saw the price more or less retrace all of its gains in 24 hours. I think weather, yeah, weather has been key. Weather has been revised several times over recent weeks, so everyone's been a bit unsure of how we're gonna look for February. But as we get close to that now, we've seen temperatures actually in Asia are just lower over recent days is meant to be quite cold in, the major demand centers like Tokyo. Seoul, Beijing, et cetera. That's got a bit warmer. Same in Europe. The UK is a bit warmer today, but we are gonna be colder again. If you look at the front month now or the latest EC 45 day report we saw, UK is actually gonna be under seasonal norm for the whole of February. So it's got actually gonna be quite a cold February in the uk. And obviously in continental Europe. Certain parts of that as well, a little bit warmer in the Netherlands and Germany. At the start of or the end of Jan, the start of Feb thus far looking at the model output. But once we get into sort of eighth, ninth, 10th, I think it starts to get a bit colder. So yeah, weather's been definitely playing a part, but obviously what's going on in Asia and all the LNG market and the expectations of all the LNG we were gonna get didn't quite materialize. When you look at last year. We had over triple the amount into Northwest Europe. That has obviously had an impact on price. So yeah it's been quite exciting. But if you look now, I think we're getting close to the sort of fair value on some of these prices. I think TTF today has just dipped back under, or day ahead anyway, dip back under 20 euros a megawatt hour TTF as well. So MVP as well. So I think we're getting close to the fair value. And if you look at the chart movement. It was a kind of peaked and then we looked at a technical head and shoulders pattern and it exhibited some of that. So yeah, it's definitely been a interesting few weeks,
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:a rollercoaster ride, Wayne, but how high did prices actually get in Asia then? I saw, something the equivalent of 50 euros a megawatt hour and maybe even higher.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah, I think we saw one car go at $36 per M-M-B-T-U half of February delivery. Yeah, I mean it's high. And the Asian Northeast. Northeast Asian price is still relatively high as well, but we're seeing that start to come down now. JKM as well has started to come down over recent days as similar revisions to weather in both Northeast, Europe or continental Europe, and of course in Asia at the same time. And also we're going into sort of shoulder season as well in the LNG markets. I think what we're gonna see is a few more cargoes coming into Northwest Europe. And looking at the export economics as well, you can see that happening over the coming months when you look at the price differentials. So yeah, I think we're gonna start to see a bit more LNG over the coming weeks. And of course, Spain as well. We had that issue in Spain where their prices really rallied and we saw some cargoes divert to there. So I think it's not as cold and snow as it once was. And looking at the mid front month price, it's sort of MVP is catching it up, so we might see some prioritization in terms of cargoes. Yeah. A lot. A lot going on.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:A lot going on. I'm sure there's a lot of demand for your service and your expertise, Wayne. But I think in terms of COVID and the continuing pandemic, you talk about tier four in London, parts of the uk, you've got cont extended lockdowns in Germany. Places like the Netherlands talking about curfews, what kind of impact is this gonna have on demand, if any?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:I think if you look at, I think LD Z demand, I was looking into this the other day actually. If you look at, I think it was Netherlands, UK and France since the turn of the year when temperatures have plummeted, we've seen LD Z demand over the three year average. And I think one of the reasons you can obviously put behind that is firstly, we're locked down. So a lot of us are at home a lot more than we usually would've been. And also as well, the restrictions on household mixing would have an impact because. Most people are in their own domestic residences now, and I know if I look at myself, my heating's been on pretty much constantly over the recent weeks, so that's one impact. What we've seen the last couple of weeks is a bit more of recovery signals in terms of non-LDS demand and business in Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany since early January. So I think we've seen a little bit more recovery in that. I was looking at the power sector as well a bit earlier, and you've seen the recovery there as well, but you've still got the likes of France and the UK in terms of power demand down about eight to 8%. So we are seeing, yeah, COVID is having an impact. And I think with these new lockdowns, I think the Netherlands and Germany have implemented new lockdowns, we could see further respects, but you've gotta think does it impact into the manufacturing side of it? Some factories, et cetera, are still running. But anyone with gas fired heating countries, then yeah, you're gonna see an uptick in demand when temperatures are a lot lower thanks to what I mentioned earlier in terms of domestic occupancy rates. So yeah, COVID still having an impact.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:So when you talk about the LDZ you talk, it's mainly the household market, isn't it?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah. Heating bench demand. But what's been interesting, sorry. Just what's been interesting, just when we mentioned COVID, it was, COVID was something we were talking about a lot more, but. Of late. It's not something that's been impacting sort of gas prices as much as it was before in the power market. I think there's been so many more different bullish drivers that it's some of the stuff we've been talking about, haven't even mentioned COVID. But yeah, it's still definitely, you can see the impact. So it's still important to monitor and we do monitor it here at Refinitiv.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Yeah, so it's very much so hovering everywhere, wherever you look there is that, that COVID element. But you mentioned demand in Asia, so to what extent has. The winter demand in Northeast Asia already peaked for LNG.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:If you look historically you would say that, you get a lot of demand over these last few months seasonally. And typically as you move into February, March, then that number of cargoes starts to slow. So I would expect demand in Asia maybe not to have peak yet, because you might have seen some buyers priced out of the market at recent prices. So there's always the risk of that. Yeah, I think typically in seasoning we see demand start to fall. And like I said earlier, looking at the most recent forecast for the major demand centers of Asia and the weather now is trending more to the warmer side. So I think we might have seen the peak, but please don't hold me to that next week. You might see more of a revision and temperatures plummeting again, even though it seems rather unlikely. But yeah.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:And this, the tightness experience this winter in Europe, is it likely to be replicated next winter? What can be done to prevent this situation potentially that's looking way into the future when,
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:it's a good question actually, because I think a lot of participants. Sort of complacent, got caught a bit short. We've had a very comfortable couple of years and I think in that respect people got a bit complacent and the weather caught a lot of people out. And I think what happened in Asia then you saw the price reaction in Europe. I think some lessons will have been learned for next year. And if you look at the forward curve now, I don't think you'll see the same number. Of cancellations from US cargo into Northwest Europe. When you do look at the economics of it at the moment, we're definitely still in the money, and I'm not sure we're gonna see two M and B-T-U-T-T-F price at $2 this summer. So I think yeah, some lessons will have been learned and if you look at the curve now, it implies a bit of that. And also we still gotta be mindful of storage levels should really falling in Europe and it's not gonna be the same as last year. So yeah, I think some lessons would've been learned from this 'cause we haven't seen this before. So yeah, people will be learning.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:We'll get onto storage in a minute, Wayne, but before we do, I just want to ask you about your expectations for. For LNG vessel arrivals into Europe. Some data I just LNG for example shows maybe arrivals rising by nearly 50% compared to last week's forecast. How does this compare with your outlook? Do you think supply will be stronger over the coming weeks?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yes we do. Definitely. I think we forecast around two BCM for next month. Which is obviously still significantly below the levels we observed last year. I think if you look last year for Feb 20, we had about five BCM. So it's a bit of a difference, but we are seeing a bit more than last month, which is good. Last month, or sorry, the month before where in December we saw I think three, three B cm, then the fall, sorry to one around 1.8, two BBC M in Jan. So hopefully in February we'll see a bit more than we do. Yeah, we see about. Two BCM of arrivals into Northwest Europe in February. We may see some more depend on situation in Asia, but yeah, I think if you look at the next few months as a whole, I think the way the market has been going, I think, and moving into the summer with us exports ramping up, they've got more production. We've seen record levels in terms of US production. I think we will start to see an uptick in deliveries and it's definitely a downside factor in terms of well, potential downside factor in price movement. Over the coming month if the weather stays as it is. I think again, the weather's pretty key to how this develops.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Absolutely. And this is to BCM over the whole of the month or by week? By week,
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:month. Yeah. Over the whole of month, February. Yeah, the whole of the month, February.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Moving on to, to storage and summer prices Wayne. We've seen, as you've mentioned, a lot of withdrawal. How unusual is the pace of withdrawals this winter?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Very again, it's something the last few days been looking into and if we looked at Northwest Storage depletion in January, it was really high. I think so. Sorry. Thus far in January, we're averaging around 5,400 gigawatt a day into Northwest European storages. That's nearly double what we observed last January. So that gives you an impression of how heavy the storage has been withdrawing. Again, the thanks to the slowdown in LNG and the colder temperatures. And if you look at, if we look at our forecast for the end of February, we would see it if current conditions remain at around 125. Terawatts. Now that is only when you think about 23% of what the total capacity is. And also last year we ended the summer, or we ended the winter, sorry, around 300 terawatt hours. So yeah, it gives you an impression of how much has been drained. And another number to put against that is last, at the end of last February, storage levels were 344 terawatt hours. Yeah, we're definitely seeing a high ation storage, thanks to the factors we've been talking about so far. So going into this winter, or coming out of this winter and going into this summer. We're still obviously not through the winter yet, there's still a couple of months ago. I think we're gonna see record low levels of storage which is then gonna incentivize the need for more imports. The price will stay at a level that will make it competitive for more LNG arrivals into Northwest Europe due to the fact we're gonna have to fill this storage level back to you.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Exactly. When could I pin you down to a number? What kind of percentage level roughly do you think we'll be at when we exit in winter?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:It's a tricky one because. Again, I've said this to someone talking about this last couple of days, is we're not out of the winter yet. It's January the 20th. January and February are typically the strongest consumption months. There's still a possibility there was some sort of polar vortex occurring. It's not completely out the woods yet, and that would really skew the forecast. But if we ended last year at 300 tarot hours, we ended the winter. And again, I'm talking about Northwest European storages here. This year? One 50 perhaps. Maybe a bit lower. Yeah, maybe a bit lower than that. It just depends on what happens over the coming months. We see more L energy. Sorry.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Yeah, no, no worries. Sorry. Do you expect more than restocking to occur over the summer? How much, do you expect to see the same levels as we saw last year?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:No, that it's gonna have to be higher this year. If we go into it with those levels of storages, however, we might see a few more. Tighter constraints this summer. Last year maintenance was completely affected. Thanks to COVID. There was a lot of disruptions to that. So maybe this year we'll get a proper maintenance schedule. We might see more higher Russian imports perhaps. So it depends, or lower imports, sorry. It just depends on the dynamics of as we get. When we get close to that period is in the end of March, then I'll definitely be in a better position to give you a more solid answer. It's just at the moment there's quite a lot of uncertainty.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:There's still a lots of LNG in the world. There's pipe gas as well. So do you think we could see a return to these record high inventories at some point this year?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:That's a possibility. You mentioned yeah, more LNG. There should be more LNG around this year. For sure. That Australia. Should start to come back. We've seen PLU come back as well and we've had obviously outs of gorgon that could be resolved. Egypt will start to come back into it. We've seen them ship a cargo recently, Japanese nuclear situation as well. We know now they've got a few reactors back on. I think they're waiting approval for about five or six more. So a few of them start to come back. Come back online as well. So I think, yeah, I think that will obviously soften their demand. So I think. We will see and the US as well. The US is pumping out LNG at record rates. I dunno what the Biden administration will do yet. There's obviously a few rumors, et cetera, how it's gonna affect the market, but the oil price is also starting to rise, which will, which increase associated gas output. So yeah, I see strong levels of LNG this over the next 11 months. More than last year, I believe.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:So more LNG pipe gas as well, and some restocking going on. Were the implications for summer prices then when
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah, I don't think that we're gonna see summer prices as low as we saw last year. The TTF and MVP were absolutely battered over that period, and we saw 'em at record lows, so I would be quite surprised if we do end up at those levels again. Think of us cargo cancellations over 160, I think was the total, the impact that had on our markets. So I, I don't think this summer that's gonna, we're gonna see that. So I don't think we're gonna see these $2 price or two Euro prices again. I still think the market will adjust lower as we start entering the next month or two. If we don't get any new, supply shocks or demand shocks and that means weather related or, LNG related or any other sort of impacts on production, I think then we will start to start trend lower as we enter into the summer season. Quite not a collapse, but definitely prices will start to adjust lower because looking at prices now, if you look at where we are now compared to last year. We more or less double the price on TTF day ahead and front month. So we're probably around the 10 11 euro mark on the day ahead. This time last year, we're now near 20 similar story for the uk. Looking at the front month contract and the day ahead is over 50% higher. It's a lot higher, so there's still a lot of room for the price to fall ahead of or over the next couple of months. But to the lows we saw, I'm not sure.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that in a way that we got too used to thinking that gas was gonna stay cheap for a long time.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah. Like I mentioned earlier, and I can loop back to, I think we got complacent. I think the market got complacent. We always thought we had so much gas no matter what was gonna be thrown out as storages were healthy. There was even a, there was less demand thanks to the COVID environment, people not traveling as much, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I think people definitely got a bit complacent and caught a bit short.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:But why do you think Asia got caught so caught off guard this winter?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah, it's interesting 'cause there was a lot of talk about storage is being at really good levels for the winter and, they'd learn their lessons and were restocking a lot earlier. However, obviously what we saw was we didn't expect to have. The tightness in the market that we saw that was caused by this, cocktail of events. I haven't mentioned shipping rates yet. We saw they're at three $50,000 a day now when you close the Panama Canal and then you've gotta travel even further. You're adding days onto your journey. I mean that all these sort of things just came together. Japanese situation, power prices were, at ridiculous levels. All these situations just came together and this is why people got short, got caught short. I think no one would've envisaged that would happen this winter. So we might see people, like I mentioned earlier, adjusting to that and accordingly for the coming winter.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Gas was in the money for power generators last year. What's the outlook here? We're seeing also, coal prices have risen dramatically as well over the past month. Where do you see the sort of coal gas competition for power generation this year? Wayne?
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:It's still it's actually ongoing and we've seen huge levels of production out of Germany, et cetera, with coal. And if you look now at the coal switching price, and if you look at what we look at the average switching in the range, of course. For the first time, I think since probably July, sort of 18, we made a lot of problems in the power market and in general. We've never seen the price outside of the top, above the top end of the switching range. Since then, we're still within the switching range, still above the average call switching price. So we are seeing a lot higher levels of switching than we initially thought possible. And even if you look at the uk the UK actual call switching price as an example, it hadn't been even in the bottom of the range since sort of January 19. And it's not, it now finds itself in the money again. And we've seen coal generation in the uk. Which is a bit of a surprise over the recent last few weeks, you can really see it ramping up and I'm not sure where it is in terms of today, but I imagine there's some, definitely some coal plant on the grid today as well. So I think if you look at the curves, four curves as well, it shows you that. Coals in the money for money still for relatively in the switching range for the rest of the year. When I look at the forward, when I look at the curves, but of course things will start to change. Gas prices will start to fall. Demand will start to fall on the coal price I think will start to fall with that as well. And I think then we'll see gas. Return to where it was before. But yeah, we're definitely seeing an impact of that. It won't be like the last few years and you've seen the coal markets been, it's been in a bad place price wise as well. And look where the prices are now. We were touching the $70 mark on the front year. So yeah, I think it's gonna, it's gonna still face some competition. Over the coming months for sure. It helps, not keep a lid, it helps keep some sort of ceiling on gas prices when we see the prices start to get certain levels and we see this gas to coal switching that we've observed over recent weeks.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Absolutely. And if the weather gets cold again as you hinted at maybe in February, then that could also have play a major role. Just finally, Wayne, I think what's really hit the news this week is the Biden presidency and the sanctions, a new round of sanctions on ships and North Stream two. What's your view here? Will this ever get built or completed? Completed? And
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:again, I remember speaking for you guys in the, in Germany a couple of years ago, and we were talking about the same thing about will it be, I remember I said at the time, I still, it'll get completed, but years. We're close to completion, obviously. But yeah, it's been interesting this week. I think the most interesting thing was when they when we saw from the headlines from the Gazprom that they issued to the, in regards to the Euro bond perspectives, and there, they actually the first time said that I think in exceptional circumstances, which may include political pressure, et cetera, the project may be suspended or discontinued. And I think that's the first time we've heard that from Gazprom. So that was quite telling.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Sorry, sorry to, but in there Wayne, but they actually said that last year as well. It's in the, it was in the Europe bond prospectus last year. I think the gas problem they pointed us in the direction and said no they've been picked up by, by certain media outlets this week, but exactly. What we said last year as well, under very, under extraordinary circumstances.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah. But I also think it's got a bit more, it carries a bit more weight now due to the level of completion. Sure. And now the timescale.'cause we were thinking maybe H two it comes online, but that's now looking severely doubtful. And of course, as you mentioned, they imposed sanctions yesterday. On a ship involved, which again, it tells you that they're not letting go. Maybe a change of administration might have had a slight change of tact, but no, it seems to think they're still gonna continue with this. It's got a strange name as well. Countering adversaries through Sanctions Act or something like that. They're still gonna continue down that path, which doesn't bode well for Gazprom to be honest. And also for Germany. I still think it'll get built, but timeline on that now for me is extending for sure. So I don't think we will be seeing it over the coming months. But you don't know. But yeah, my heart tells me that, yeah, I don't think we're gonna see it any, anytime soon with the way the US is still continuing to lay sanctions on this. And that was the pipeline ship, I think, as well, wasn't it? Yeah.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Yep. Yep. There's very sort of bipartisan supports on this in, in, in the States. We sh we shall see, maybe this time next year we'll be talking about the same thing again. Wayne, I'll be putting the same questions to you.
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:Yeah. It seems to be a co, a constant thing for the last couple of years indeed. And every time we keep, we keep kicking the can down the road, and I think this time we're kicking the can a lot further.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:Brilliant, Wayne, always great to have you on the show and thanks again for your time and your views on the gas markets. We'll speak again soon,
Wayne Bryan, Director, European Gas Research, Refinitiv:anytime, and hopefully see you soon at some point. Absolutely. More to the point. Yep. Thank you. Take care. Thanks Wayne. Cheers.
Richard Sverrisson, Editor-in-Chief Europe, Montel:So listeners, you can now follow the podcast on our own Twitter account, aply named the Montel Weekly podcast. Please direct message. Any suggestions, questions, or let us know if you think you have a good idea for a guest on the show, you can also send us an email to podcast@montelnews.com. Lastly, remember to keep up to date with all that's happening in energy markets on Montel News. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from. Thank you and goodbye.