(London) The price of European natural gas climbed on Friday after the start of a strike on gas installations in Australia, when oil prices remained on the rise, driven by supply tensions.
Around 6:15 a.m. EST (12:15 p.m. Paris), the Dutch TTF futures contract, considered the European benchmark, gained nearly 9.5%, trading at 35,955 euros per megawatt hour (MWh). ).
After weeks of threats of walkouts at liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Australia, “the day has now come when the strike” has begun, comment analysts at Energi Danmark.
Employees of the American energy giant Chevron began rotating strikes on Friday for an increase in their salaries in the American group’s gas production sites in Australia, representing up to 5% of global LNG supplies. union officials announced.
“The unions have indicated that the work stoppages, which can last up to 11 hours per day […] should last until September 14,” specify the DNB analysts.
“A two-week (24-hour) all-out strike could then follow if the ongoing dispute over wages and working conditions is not resolved,” they continue.
Since mid-August, threats of strike action on Australian LNG facilities, which alone provide more than 10% of global supplies, have shaken up TTF prices, even reaching almost 45 euros per MWh.
“China and Japan are the two largest buyers of Australian LNG, followed by South Korea and Taiwan,” DNB analysts explain.
However, Asian buyers in need of liquefied natural gas could therefore be pushed to outbid their European counterparts and turn to the United States to compensate for the lack of Australian supply, boosting demand.
Oil, for its part, rose slightly on Friday, driven by “the persistence of a largely insufficient supply and the drop in oil stocks”, according to DNB analysts.
A barrel of Brent from the North Sea, for delivery in November, gained 0.61% to 90.47 dollars. Its American equivalent, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), for delivery in October, rose 0.52% to $87.32.
On Thursday, commercial crude oil inventories in the United States recorded a further decline of 6.3 million barrels for the past week, significantly higher than expectations.
The market also remains on an upward trend following the decision by Saudi Arabia and Russia earlier in the week to continue their production and export cuts for three more months.
“The oil market should therefore remain very tight until the end of the year,” commented Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank.