Wholesale UK gas prices have surged on news that the Rough gas storage platform will be shut for a month following the recent fire that left the facility disabled.

Reuters reported that the within a day trading price rose 7.25 pence per therm on the back of the news, while the week-ahead price for the week commencing February 27 was up by 28 pence to GBP1 per therm, the highest for more than two months.

Centrica owns the facility in the North Sea, and Rough is the UK’s largest gas storage station. The fire came at a time when concerns of gas supply capacity to the UK are already heightened due to fears that the Belgium-UK Interconnector pipeline is not delivering imported gas to its full capacity.

Restoration of full power and other services remains our first priority. The initial visual inspection of the scene would appear to indicate that there was an apparent failure of a cooler unit.

Following this initial visual inspection we currently estimate that it is unlikely that Rough will be available for one month, Centrica’s storage arm said in a statement.