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港股概念追踪 | 突然“断气”!欧洲天然气大涨10%,供需趋紧局面或持续至2025年(附概念股)

Hong Kong stock concept tracking | Suddenly "out of breath"! Europe's henry hub natural gas rose by 10%, and the tight supply and demand situation may continue until 2025 (with concept stocks).

Zhitong Finance ·  Jun 4 09:23

If there is another disruption in the production and supply chain of gas fields in major supply countries such as Norway, it will further exacerbate the supply shortage and cause natural gas prices to skyrocket.

The unexpected interruption of natural gas supply in Norway has caused a huge shock in the European natural gas market. Data shows that on June 3, the futures contract of Dutch natural gas on the Amsterdam Futures Exchange rose by about 10%, and the futures price of British natural gas also rose.

On Monday, there was an unexpected shutdown event reported at the Nyhamna natural gas processing plant in Norway. At the same time, the natural gas flow from Norway to the Easington terminal in the UK through the North Sea also dropped to zero. One-third of the UK's natural gas supply relies on this pipeline for imports.

According to the latest news, Gassco, the natural gas pipeline operator in Norway, disclosed that the reason for the shutdown event was that a "natural gas pipeline crack" was found on the Sleipner Riser platform near Norway. Gassco also stated that although it is not clear how much time it will take to fix this problem, the current situation seems "not dangerous". Gassco is the main operator of natural gas pipelines and related equipment in Norway, mainly responsible for delivering natural gas from the Norwegian continental shelf to other European countries.

Alfred Hansen, the director of the Gassco pipeline system operator, said that the incident had a significant impact on supply. Although there are options to bypass the Sleipner Riser platform in terms of gas supply, it is also "time-consuming and risky". According to Gassco's data, affected by this incident, Norway's natural gas supply volume dropped sharply from 300 million cubic meters per day on Friday to 255 million cubic meters per day on Monday.

Public information shows that the Nyhamna plant can process up to 79.8 million cubic meters of natural gas per day, and the processing capacity corresponding to the Easington terminal in the UK is up to 72.5 million cubic meters.

It is worth mentioning that the rising natural gas prices in Europe indicate that although the natural gas storage facilities in the region have exceeded 70%, and the industrial demand in Europe is recovering slowly, the market is still vulnerable to extreme fluctuations. European natural gas futures have risen for three consecutive months, up 18% in May.

Europe's dependence on Norwegian natural gas began with the Russia-Ukraine conflict. After the Russia-Ukraine conflict began, most of the natural gas supplies from Russia to Europe through pipelines have been interrupted, making Norway an indispensable player in ensuring Europe's energy security.

Some analysts believe that with the continued Russia-Ukraine conflict, the EU is facing heavy pressure to ensure energy supply for heating and heating this winter. If there is another disruption in the production and supply chain of gas fields in major supply countries such as Norway, it will further exacerbate the supply shortage and cause natural gas prices to skyrocket.

In addition, as high temperatures sweep through Asia, the increasing demand for electricity for air conditioning also promotes the increasing demand for natural gas imports, which may further intensify the competition for natural gas between Asia and Europe.

Guolian Securities research report pointed out that the reason for the absence of a significant increase in international gas prices in 2023 is that European and Asian demand has not increased significantly, and the global natural gas market is in a tight supply-demand balance. According to Agus and S&P's statistics on global liquefied natural gas projects, the period from the end of 2024 to 2025 may usher in a period of substantial increase in global liquefied natural gas capacity, and LNG projects may usher in large-scale production, and a large amount of capacity may be released on the supply side: the situation of natural gas supply and demand tightening may continue until 2025.

According to the research report of SDIC Securities, since 2023, the consumption of natural gas has shown a recovery growth under the economic recovery in China. The upstream gas source supply is relatively sufficient, and the downstream natural gas price mechanism reform is accelerating and price increase situation continues to improve, which jointly promotes the growth of gas sales volume and the recovery of gas price spread of urban gas companies. At the same time, with the bottoming out and rebounding of international gas prices, the profit of overseas long-term contracts resale in Q4 of 2023 and 2024 is expected to be restored. Therefore, bullish on the improvement of resale profit contribution and the performance growth and valuation recovery of urban gas companies. The related benefiting symbols include:

If there is another disruption in the production and supply chain of gas fields in major supply countries such as Norway, it will further exacerbate the supply shortage and cause natural gas prices to skyrocket.

The unexpected interruption of natural gas supply in Norway has caused a huge shock in the European natural gas market. Data shows that on June 3, the futures contract of Dutch natural gas on the Amsterdam Futures Exchange rose by about 10%, and the futures price of British natural gas also rose. On Monday, there was an unexpected shutdown event reported at the Nyhamna natural gas processing plant in Norway. At the same time, the natural gas flow from Norway to the Easington terminal in the UK through the North Sea also dropped to zero. One-third of the UK's natural gas supply relies on this pipeline for imports. According to the latest news, Gassco, the natural gas pipeline operator in Norway, disclosed that the reason for the shutdown event was that a "natural gas pipeline crack" was found on the Sleipner Riser platform near Norway. Gassco also stated that although it is not clear how much time it will take to fix this problem, the current situation seems "not dangerous". Gassco is the main operator of natural gas pipelines and related equipment in Norway, mainly responsible for delivering natural gas from the Norwegian continental shelf to other European countries. Alfred Hansen, the director of the Gassco pipeline system operator, said that the incident had a significant impact on supply. Although there are options to bypass the Sleipner Riser platform in terms of gas supply, it is also "time-consuming and risky". According to Gassco's data, affected by this incident, Norway's natural gas supply volume dropped sharply from 300 million cubic meters per day on Friday to 255 million cubic meters per day on Monday.

3, A-share natural gas companies: enn natural gas, shenzhen gas corporation, blue sky gas.

Related concept stocks:

$ENN ENERGY (02688.HK)$: In early May, CICC released a research report stating that the profit forecast for enn energy in 2024 and 2025 remained unchanged. It maintained the "outperform the industry" rating and raised the target price by 7.7% to HKD 70, considering the positive catalysis of the increase in gas volume on the company's valuation. The brief operating data of the first quarter mentioned in the report showed that the retail natural gas volume increased by 2.7% year-on-year, of which industrial and commercial gas volume increased by 2.9% year-on-year, and civil gas volume increased by 2.5% year-on-year. The report judged that the main reason for the further acceleration of the company's sales growth in the first quarter was the company's more flexible sales strategy and the year-on-year decline in liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices, which drove downstream demand to improve.

$CHINA RES GAS (01193.HK)$: In mid-to-late May, Citigroup released a research report stating that the target price of China Resources Gas was raised from HKD 26 to HKD 29.5. Considering the recent sluggish growth in retail gas sales volume and the lack of merger and acquisition catalysts, the rating was downgraded from "buy" to "neutral". The bank stated that it is more optimistic about enn energy (02688) in the Chinese gas industry because its monthly gas sales growth is higher. It also started a 30-day downward catalyst observation on China Resources Gas because of its high base, and it is expected that the natural gas retail volume growth from April to May will slow down compared to the first quarter. Due to the increase in unit profits and the decrease in depreciation costs, the net profit forecast for the group from 2024 to 2026 was raised by 4% to 8%.

$CHINA GAS HOLD (00384.HK)$: China Gas announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary China Gas Investment Co., Ltd. (CGI) achieved revenue of RMB 7.915 billion and net profit of RMB 582 million in the three months ended March 31, 2024.

$KUNLUN ENERGY (00135.HK)$: In late March, BOCOM International released a research report stating that it maintained a "buy" rating on Kunlun Energy and believed that the company's stable profit structure combined with good cash flow still makes it a relatively good choice in the industry. Driven by the current natural gas sales sector, the overall net profit can maintain a compound growth rate of about 10% from 2023 to 2026, and the target price is raised to HKD 8.52.

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