UK GAS-Prices egde up as cold snap continues

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - British wholesale gas prices edged up on Wednesday morning as a cold snap continued, driving up demand for heating. * British within-day contract up by 0.05 pence to 40.75 p/therm at 0901 GMT. * Day-ahead gas price 0.15 pence higher at 40.75 p/therm. * Colder-than-normal temperatures are expected to continue until Friday but should be higher next week and near seasonal norms, Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news) meteorologist Georg Muller said. * System slightly oversupplied by around 3 million cubic metres (mcm), with flows forecast at 299 mcm/day and demand at 296 mcm, National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) data shows. * Flows through the Langeled pipeline from Norway are at 55 mcm, up from 40 mcm on Tuesday, likely driven by more production from the Troll field, Thomson Reuters gas analyst Oliver Sanderson said. * "By next week we expect Langeled to fall to 25 mcm/d and there is a risk of lower than this given Ormen Lange maintenance from the gas days of April 30 to May 4," he added. * May gas price up by 0.42 pence to 39.25 p/therm. * Day-ahead gas price at the Dutch TTF hub up by 0.19 euro to 16.27 euros/MWh. * Benchmark Dec-17 EU carbon contract down by 0.02 euro to 4.52 euros per tonne. * Thomson Reuters analyst view: http://emea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageid=united-kingdom-gas (Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Susanna Twidale)