The European carbon market closed higher for the third consecutive session on Monday. The EUAs traded as high as €74,9 before closing at €74,22, the highest level since at the end of a session since the first week of January.

The impressive rise was driven by scheduled maintenance works at several gas facilities in Norway leading to almost halved flows on Tuesday compared to the previous day. Deliveries to Europe are expected to return to normal at the beginning of next month, according to Norway’s gas grid operator Gassco.

“These are planned events and so won’t come as a surprise to the market, and help rationalize the increases seen in recent weeks. The main concern for the market will be the timely return of these assets which, historically, can be unreliable,” warned Auxilione, an independent energy consultancy.

Last summer, a maintenance outage at a key Norwegian gas processing plant was extended by almost three weeks. As a result, gas prices increased by more than €10 within a week, pulling up carbon prices and highlighting the importance of Norway’s maintenance works to the European energy markets. 

However, high gas storage levels in Europe should limit the impact on both gas and carbon prices in case of any maintenance extensions. According to Gas Infrastructure Europe, as of 19 May 2024 inventories were at 67,15% of capacity, above the five-year average.