EUROPE GAS-Prices drop due to milder, windier weather

March 11 - Dutch and British wholesale gas prices were weaker on Monday as lower demand due to milder weather and well-filled storage tanks offset lower Norwegian gas flows to continental Europe.

The benchmark Dutch TTF front-month contract was down 1.00 euro at 25.60 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0945 GMT, its lowest level for a week, LSEG data showed.

The day-ahead contract fell 0.93 euros to 25.60 euros/MWh.

In Britain, the front-month contract shed 2.27 pence to 63.70 pence per therm. The day-ahead contract fell 3.30 p to 65.70 p/therm.

"Nyhamna is currently on unplanned outage, which may impact the market in the short term," consultancy Auxilione said in its morning note.

"But otherwise things remain unchanged with warmer than seasonal normal temperatures expected this week," it added.

Norway's Nyhamna gas processing plant is operating at 24.8 million cubic metres (mcm) per day lower capacity due to a compressor failure, infrastructure operator Gassco said on its transparency page.

However, while Norwegian gas flows to continental Europe were down on Monday morning, supply to Britain rose.

Meanwhile, an expected warm spell and increased wind speeds would see total north-west Europe demand down by 127 gigawatt hours (GWh) per day for Tuesday, LSEG analyst Timothy Crump said.

British peak wind power output was expected to nearly double from 8.6 gigawatts (GW) on Monday to 16.1 GW on Tuesday, Elexon data showed.

Europe's gas stores are currently 60.7% full, 3.6 percentage points higher than at the same point last year, the latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract fell 1.66 euros to 56.73 euros a metric ton. (Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; editing by Milla Nissi)