NBP Prices Expected on 2014 Levels in Coming Months, Says Cedigaz

NBP price for 2015 is expected to be on 2014 levels, said Cedigaz on its blog, adding that tensions between Russia and Ukraine, and the drop in Dutch production will be determinant factors in the price definition. 

‘Based on market anticipations, the NBP price for 2015 is expected to be in the €20.3-22.4/MWh range, close to last year’s average of €21.2/MWh ($8.2/MBtu). For the end of the year, current forecasts call for levels ranging from €20/MWh ($6.6/MBtu) to nearly €23/MWh ($7.6/MBtu)’ the organisation wrote on Monday. 

According to the France-based organisation, the increase in carbon tax support in the United Kingdom, ‘fixed since April 2015 at £18/TCO2 (€25-24/TCO2) as opposed to £9.5/TCO2 in 2014’, will support gas consumption in the electricity sector, eroding coal-fired plants’ competitiveness. 

‘The story is different on the European continent, where natural gas continues to be doubly penalized by the excessively low prices not only of CO2 but also, in some countries, of electricity (the effect of renewable energies). Overly low prices of CO2 benefit coal while those of electricity reduce or wipe out operator margins’ Guy Maisonnier, Senior Economist at IFPEN, wrote in the blog. 

In April, the British government released its latest energy statistics. Provisional data pointed at an increase in gas exports (+16.8%) and a decrease in gas imports (-10.8%) in 2014 with respect to the previous year. Despite the lower wholesale gas prices, though, gas used for electricity generation increased only by 1.5%.