Norway’s gas exports to Europe fell once again on Tuesday amid outages at Visund and Skarv fields due to a power failure. According to Gassco, the Norwegian grid operator, gas flows to the rest of the continent were reduced by 33,8 mcm/day in the afternoon.

Once again, the gas market reacted immediately to the news, with the TTF front month increasing by 1,43% with carbon closely mirroring gas prices. The EUAs settled with 0,75% daily gain, putting an end to three sessions of losses.

Yesterday’s events are a new reminder of Europe’s vulnerability to any gas disruptions from Norway after the country became Europe’s main supplier. “The main drivers haven’t changed, there’s just nervousness around the market regarding supply,” a trader said, quoted by Reuters, explaining the price development on Tuesday. 

In the past few weeks, on two occasions outages affecting Norway’s gas infrastructure have sent prices soaring. The situation could get worse as hot weather would lift power demand for cooling over the summer. 

In addition, the competition for LNG supplies has already intensified as heat waves hit Asia and the US, lifting global demand. Furthermore, wind turbine performance tends to be the lowest during the summer adding further pressure on gas prices.