UK Energy Market Report - 5 August 2026

Hormuz reopening talk pulled the risk premium out of gas and oil together, sending the whole near curve lower, while Sum-28 and Win-28 quietly settled higher.

Yesterday’s rebound has gone again, and this time the whole board went with it. Every NBP contract out to Win-27 settled lower on 4 August, UK Day-Ahead power fell almost 40 £/MWh, and Brent shed more than 5% to a three-week low.

One headline did most of it. Reports that an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be reached shortly pulled the risk premium out of gas and oil together.

What did not follow is the far end of the curve. Sum-28 and Win-28 gas both settled higher, and this morning everything from Sum-27 out is bid again while the prompt keeps sliding.

Gas Market

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 135.25 p/therm on 4 August, down 5.75p or just over 4% on the session. Sep-26 lost 4.24p to 136.78p, Q4-26 fell 3.94p to 140.09p and Win-26 dropped 3.49p to 137.10p.

Dutch TTF Day-Ahead was assessed at €55.47/MWh, down roughly 3.7%. It had rallied to €60.47/MWh intraday before the Hormuz headline turned it round, so the reversal was sharper than the closing number suggests.

Weather added to it. North West European temperatures are forecast to drop from around 4.6°C above the five-year average to slightly below normal by 7 August, which cuts cooling demand and gas burn for power.

This morning the prompt is softer still. Day-Ahead is indicated 1.30p lower at 133.95p, Sep-26 is down 1.76p at 135.02p and Q4-26 has lost 1.81p to 138.28p.

The far curve is doing the opposite. Sum-27 is indicated 1.07p higher at 90.50p, Sum-28 up 1.03p at 67.50p and Win-27 up 0.73p at 89.75p. Thin liquidity is part of that, but the direction has been consistent for two sessions now.

On the system, Britain opened 5 mcm/day long. Total demand fell 16.83 mcm/day to 114.30 mcm/day, while gas-for-power nominations were up 16 mcm/day day-on-day. Linepack is broadly flat at 339.26 mcm.

Norwegian flows are the tighter side of the picture. GASSCO total exit nominations stand at 319.3 mcm/day, and deliveries to Britain have fallen again, Langeled down 3.80 mcm/day to 44.10 and Vesterled and Flags down 1.00 to 13.00. UKCS production is 4.60 mcm/day lower at 69.30.

UK LNG sendout is unchanged at 8 mcm/day, South Hook 5.00 and Isle of Grain 3.20. Britain is still exporting into the continental premium, 34.70 mcm/day to Belgium through IUK and 15.92 mcm/day to the Netherlands through BBL, with NBP at 135.25p sitting under TTF at 139.05p, THE at 140.24p and Italian PSV at 151.09p.

The card below summarises where NBP contracts settled against the previous session.

Electricity Market

UK Day-Ahead baseload settled at 88.84 £/MWh on 4 August, down 39.66 £/MWh on the day. Peak fell much further, losing 70.91 £/MWh to close at 49.61 £/MWh.

That is the number worth pausing on. Peak settled 39 £/MWh below baseload, which only happens when midday renewable output is heavy enough to swamp the daytime demand block.

Forwards fell in line with gas but far more gently. Sep-26 baseload eased 3.63 £/MWh to 116.00, Q4-26 lost 3.28 to 118.82 and Win-26 dropped 2.49 to 117.31. Peak Win-26 settled at 134.59.

This morning has split again. Day-Ahead baseload is offered 21.66 £/MWh higher at 110.5, while forward contracts are all indicated marginally up, Win-27 by 2.04 £/MWh and Win-28 by 1.63.

Wind is the swing factor and it is about to turn. Output is expected to peak today before easing tomorrow, with UK load factors forecast to drop from roughly 47% on 5 August to 31% on 6 August, and to sit below seasonal norms through the rest of the outlook.

Balancing has settled down. Maximum System Buy Price on 4 August was 167.42 £/MWh at 18:48 against a minimum sell price of 59.50, and today’s peak so far is 164.50 £/MWh at 00:18 with the floor holding at 85.00.

The nuclear programme still sits under the curve. Hartlepool 2 comes off on 7 August for 16 days, taking 620 MW out, with Heysham 1 following on 17 August and Torness 1 on 21 August. Heysham 2 unit 8 then goes down on 4 September for 80 days.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 settled at 79.36 $/barrel, down 4.41 or 5.3% and the lowest in three weeks. President Trump described Tuesday’s all-day negotiations with Iran as “very good discussions”, and the market has taken that at face value.

The counterweight is that separate reports suggest the US military has run down a large part of its precision long-range missile stockpile over the five-month conflict, which argues both for a settlement and for how much capacity remains if talks fail.

Carbon went the other way and was the only part of the complex to gain. EUA Dec-26 added 0.48 to €81.34 and UK ETS Dec-26 rose 0.55 to £59.33. At this morning’s cross that leaves the UK contract at roughly a £10 per tonne discount to the European scheme.

Coal API2 for Cal-27 lost 2.00 to $120.14/tonne and JKM fell 0.66 to $19.89/MMBtu. Sterling was flat against the euro at 1.1677 and firmer against the dollar at 1.3448.

Commodity	Price	Change (day)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$79.36/barrel	-5.3%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$120.14/tonne	-1.6%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€81.34/tonne	+0.6%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£59.33/tonne	+0.9%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$19.89/MMBtu	-3.2%
TTF Gas (day-ahead)	€55.47/MWh	-3.7%

Storage and Supply Outlook

EU gas storage was around 57.66% full on 4 August, roughly 12 percentage points below the same point last year. That gap is the single most important number in this report.

UK storage sits at about 42%, behind Italy above 70% and Iberia not far off it. Site by site, Stublach is 74% and Holehouse Farm 70%, but Hornsea is only 35%, Aldbrough 48% and both Rough and Humbly Grove are recorded at zero. On the LNG tanks, South Hook is 81%, Isle of Grain 42% and Dragon 33%.

European LNG imports totalled roughly 8.8 bcm in July, down about 19% on June and 29% on last July. Asian competition explains part of it, with September JKM up roughly 2.7% in the previous session.

This week’s North West European cargo schedule is entirely American and entirely continental. Wilhelmshaven and Gate take deliveries today, Eemshaven tomorrow, and Gate is due four cargoes by 12 August. Not one UK terminal appears on the loaded arrival list.

Temperatures turn supportive again after the midweek dip. The latest UK EC46 run is warmer than the previous one for next week and stays above seasonal norms throughout the outlook.

What This Means for Your Business

The prompt and the curve are telling you different things this week, and only one of them matters for a contract decision.

Day-Ahead gas has fallen 5.75p and Day-Ahead peak power has fallen 70.91 £/MWh, both on a diplomatic headline and a windy afternoon. Neither survives contact with a Norwegian outage or a still day.

The durable signal is the shape. Win-26 settled at 137.10p against Sum-27 at 89.43p, a step down of 47.67p per therm once this coming winter clears. That gap was 50.57p at Monday’s close, so it has closed by nearly 3p in a single session, and it closed from the top.

Read that alongside Sum-28 and Win-28 rising while everything nearer settled lower. The market is taking value out of the expensive winter and quietly putting it into 2028. If a long fix looked cheap at the back end last month, it is getting less so.

For power buyers the case is more specific. A Day-Ahead print of 49.61 £/MWh on peak says nothing at all about a two-year deal when 1.9 GW of nuclear comes off through August and every forward baseload contract is indicated higher this morning. It is worth checking what your contracted rate actually looks like against the forward curve rather than against the day’s headline.

Carbon deserves a look too, because it rose on a day when nothing else did. A UK ETS at £59.33 flows into your electricity price whether or not you track it, and if you report emissions it is also a cost you can forecast. Getting your emissions position measured properly turns that from a line item into something you can plan around.

The watch items are the Hormuz talks, tomorrow’s drop in wind, and Hartlepool 2 coming off on Friday.

For a view tailored to your consumption profile and renewal window, speak to one of our energy consultants today.

Previous report: UK Energy Market Report – 4 August 2026