I woke up to an interesting text and email this morning:
National Grid NTS has issued a Gas Deficit Warning
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The Gas Deficit Warning will remain in place until it is withdrawn by National Grid NTS.
A quick glance at the Entry Zone Graphs in 24-hour mode shows why. Yesterday evening, with demand of a bit under 400mcm/day, over 100mcm was coming from LNG supplies stored at Milford Haven and Isle of Grain, about and nearly 80mcm from medium range storage. Long range storage (Rough) is pumping out the dregs prior to shutting down for good, and was supplying 8mcm.
But early this morning, all four supplies of LNG into the gas network dropped significantly, and the smaller supply from Rough dropped to zero as well:
Of course, the immediate question is why? The REMIT website for South Hook LNG shows that the regasification plant went out of action at 05:23, though it's strange that output from Grain and Dragon dropped too, as they don't say much about it yet. South Hook does say that normal operations resumed at 06:55, so maybe things will get back to normal soon - output is indeed rising there, and at Dragon.
Still, it should serve as a warning as to just how little slack there is in the UK's energy supply system right now, and the Grain LNG flow still looks to be staying low, so we may not be out of the woods yet. The REMIT section at Isle of Grain website simply says: "Grain LNG Terminal are currently experiencing capacity and gas flow restrictions." Let's wait and see what happens...
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