Dutch wholesale gas prices were mostly down on softer demand on Friday morning, with British gas prices also lower, ahead of a meeting of EU energy ministers to discuss soaring prices on the back of cuts to Russian supplies.

The benchmark Dutch contract for October was down 10 euros at 210 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) by 0924 GMT and the day-ahead contract was down 16.60 euros at 194 euros/MWh.

European Union energy ministers meet on Friday to pore over a long list of possible measures to shield citizens from sky-high energy prices as winter approaches.

VNG, one of Germany's biggest importers of Russian natural gas, on Friday became the latest European energy company to request state support to keep the business afloat as it contends with plummeting Russian supplies.

"Given the new announcements, some utilities will have to unwind some positions quite quickly, so we might see some fast (price) moves down," one European gas trader said.

Demand has softened as weather forecast show temperatures in Europe above seasonal norms for the next couple of weeks.

Engie's EnergyScan analysts said that market fundamentals are relatively bearish for the coming days, with a sharp upward swing in temperatures forecaste at the beginning of next week and LNG imports into Europe still strong.

Eastbound natural gas flows through the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Poland from Germany rose on Friday, operator data showed, while the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany remained shut.

In the UK, the British gas contract for October delivery fell by 23 pence to 390 pence per therm while the contract for weekend delivery was down 10 pence at 340 p/therm.

Refinitiv analysts said that prices are expected to remain suppressed, given withdrawals from almost full storage facilities can fill any supply gap resulting from low Norwegian imports.

Norwegian gas nominations to Britain were about 19 million cubic metres (mcm) per day on Friday, versus 25 mcm the previous day.

Britain's gas system was 7.3 mcm oversupplied on Friday, National Grid data showed.

Peak wind power generation is forecast at 6.04 gigawatts (GW) on Friday and at 3.5 GW on Saturday, out of total metered capacity of 19.9 GW, Elexon data showed.

In the European carbon market, the benchmark contract fell by 0.17 euros to 67.05 euros a tonne.

(Reporting by Marwa Rashad Editing by David Goodman)