EUROPE GAS-European prices rise over Middle East energy war jitters

OSLO, March 23 (Reuters) - Dutch and British gas contracts rose early on Monday and face another volatile trading session as the war in the Middle East risks escalating strikes on energy infrastructure and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz remains elusive.

The benchmark Dutch front-month contract at the TTF hub TFMBMc1 was up 3.01 euros at 62.35 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0901 GMT, data from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) showed.

The British contract for April NGLNMc1 was up 6.3 pence at 157.40 pence per therm.

The uptrend in the gas market continued on Monday morning amid the U.S. threats against Iran, new Israeli strikes and the growing concerns about long-term impacts on global supply, analysts at Mind Energy said in a daily note.

On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to "obliterate" Iran's power plants if it did not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. In turn, Iran warned it could destroy critical infrastructure and energy facilities in the Middle East.

A strike on Qatar's Ras Laffan energy complex last week damaged two liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains, which has wiped out 17% of Qatar's LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy's CEO said.

"This has seen year-ahead contracts increase substantially more than the benchmark front month futures," said Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ.

Analysts at Rabobank said they raised their TTF price forecast and now see 50 euros/MWh for 2026 and 42 euros/MWh for 2027, to reflect a prolonged closure of the Strait and a multi-year curtailment of Qatari LNG flows following strikes on its Ras Laffan terminal.

All monthly TTF contracts out to February 2027 are currently trading above 60 euros/MWh, double their levels before the start of the war on February 28, according to ICE data.

"We also see risk of further attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf inflicting lasting supply curtailments, posing significant upside price risk to our natural gas and crude oil views," Rabobank said.

Meanwhile, LNG supply this year is now expected to remain around 2025 levels, at 443 million tons, they forecast, as U.S. additions can no longer offset outages across the Middle East and North Africa.

EU gas storage sites were last 28.5% full, compared with around 33.8% at the same time last year, Gas Infrastructure Europe data showed.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract CFI2Zc1 was down 1.60 euro at 66.06 euros a metric ton.