The chief executive of Venture Production, a UK-based gas E&P firm, has predicted that gas prices will stay buoyant for the foreseeable future.
Mike Wagstaff told Platts Commodity News that his company’s new CH4 gas field assets stood to benefit from their position in the North Sea by sending gas to the Dutch trading hub at Den Helder. This, he speculated, could then see the gas sold either to the UK via the under-construction BBL pipeline, or onto the Dutch market itself – wherever the price was higher.
Mr Wagstaff went on to tell Platts that he forecast sustained high prices for gas on the UK forward market – summer prices of GBP0.40 per therm and winter at GBP0.80 per therm. He added that these sustained highs could partly be due to project delivery issues surrounding new capacity such as BBL, and political pressures caused perhaps by the role of Russian gas imports.