UK natural gas prices hit record after fire

[LONDON] Prices of natural gas hit fresh records in Britain on Wednesday after a fire knocked out a vital point connecting the country's power grid to France.

The outage reported by National Grid, which manages Britain's power network, compounded price fears with UK inflation hitting a nine-year peak in August partly because of a surge in wholesale power prices across Europe.

The company said the fire had taken out its IFA interconnector at Sellindge in Kent, southeast England.

"Following an initial review, we have updated the market that 1000MW (megawatts) is unavailable until 27 March 2022," National Grid said in a statement.

"We have extended the outage on the other 1000MW, which was offline due to a planned outage, until 25 September."

Gas futures for winter delivery hit a record £200 per megawatt-hour before settling at £178.

National Grid said IFA2, its other interconnector to France, "continues to operate as normal at full capacity".

A lack of atmospheric wind for turbine sites, coupled with ongoing nuclear outages and the winding down of coal mines by climate-conscious governments, has left parts of Europe grappling with an energy crisis.

Russia says its newly completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany will alleviate any winter shortages. But the US government and EU ally Ukraine are deeply opposed to the Kremlin-backed project.

AFP