Gas for immediate delivery was 0.45 pence higher at 27.65 pence per therm at 1037 GMT.

Day-ahead gas price was up 0.08 pence at 27.48 p/therm.

Traders said the focus in earlier trade had likely been on a couple of unplanned outages in Norway which had ended and higher wind output forecasts.

However, the fundamental undersupply of the market had started to weigh by mid-morning.

The system is undersupplied by around 7 million cubic metres (mcm), with demand forecast at around 160 mcm and flows at 153 mcm/day, National Grid data shows.

An unplanned outage at Nyhama gas processing plant is affecting flows by 18 mcm/day and is expected to continue until July 11.

An outage at the Troll field is affecting supply by 19 mcm/day is supposed to end today, according to Gassco. Troll has another outage coming up from July 9-18.

Liquefied natural gas supply is also lower.

Prices declined slightly in early trade as market participants as two unplanned Norwegian outages ended.

Peak wind generation is forecast at 4.8 gigawatts (GW) on Thursday and 5.4 GW on Friday, Elexon data shows. Higher wind output typically reduces demand from gas-to-power plants.

August contract up 0.30 pence at 27.20 p/therm.

Further along the curve, the Q1 2020 contract was up 0.32 pence at 52.17 p/therm.

Day-ahead gas price at the Dutch TTF hub was 0.16 euro higher at 10.43 euros per megawatt hour.

Benchmark Dec-19 EU carbon contract retreated by 0.18 euro to 26.33 euros a tonne.