Norway’s Equinor warned on April 8 that its first quarter results would be negatively impacted by between $400 million and $500 million from trade in natural gas derivatives used to hedge its physical deliveries.
“The high volatility and price increase in European gas markets in 1Q have resulted in larger than expected mark to market results for our European gas and LNG business,” the company said in a regular quarterly guidance to analysts.
Equinor has earned record profits from soaring oil and gas prices and is widely expected to see a further increase in earnings this year, forecasts by analysts show.
Norway’s biggest company has repeatedly warned however of large swings in the results of its gas derivatives trade due high market price volatility, which was also greater than normal in the first quarter.
The impact is primarily seen in its Marketing, Midstream and Processing (MMP) segment.
“Market prices in the first quarter means that MMP is taking mark to market losses on a small volume of deferred gas sales, losses on methanol production from natural gas at Tjeldbergodden and loss on an oil linked contract,” the company said.
The expected negative impact in the first quarter, however, would be smaller than in the final quarter of 2021, when it stood at around $1.5 billion.
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