U.K. Natural Gas Advances as Oil Rises on Middle East Unrest

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. natural gas advanced as Brent crude oil reached its highest this year amid protests in Libya against Muammar Qaddafi's regime.

Gas for winter, the six months from October, rose 1.15 pence, or 1.9 percent, to 61.75 pence a therm at 8:30 a.m. in London, according to broker prices compiled by Bloomberg. That's equal to $10.02 a million British thermal units and the highest price since Jan. 13. A therm is 100,000 Btu. Summer gas gained 0.85 pence, or 1.6 percent, to 53.2 pence.

Brent for April rose as much as $2.08, or 2 percent, to $104.60 a barrel today on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange. Higher oil costs push up some mainland European gas contracts and affect prices in the U.K. because of pipeline connections to Europe.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/02/21/bloomberg1376-LGYLCC6JIJUQ01-08C813MT8GK3ITM0VFI7D5O435.DTL)