UK Energy Market Report - 6 August 2026

NBP gave up 8p to 9p across the curve on 5 August, then bought half of it straight back this morning, while UK day-ahead power settled 22.44 £/MWh higher on strong midday solar.

The sell-off was real, and it is already being unwound. Every NBP contract on the board settled lower on 5 August, most of them by 8p or 9p a therm, and by mid-morning today roughly half of that had been bought straight back.

Strong renewable output, healthy LNG inflows and a softening of Middle East risk did the damage. None of those are structural, which is why the retrace started within hours.

The exception, and the number that will surprise anyone glancing at headlines, is UK Day-Ahead power. It settled 22.44 £/MWh higher on a day when gas fell.

Gas Market

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 129.50 p/therm on 5 August, down 5.75p on the session. The front month fell harder, Sep-26 losing 8.74p to 128.04p.

The curve moved almost as one. Q4-26 gave up 8.69p to 131.39p, Nov-26 fell 8.67p to 132.21p and Win-26 dropped 8.14p to 128.96p.

Three things pushed it. European wind and solar output came in at just over 151 GW, LNG regasification ran at roughly 227 mcm/day and stayed above both the July and month-to-date averages, and Norwegian deliveries held at 318.9 mcm/day.

Asia did the rest. September JKM fell around 7% on the day, which takes competition out of the cargo market and feeds directly into European winter pricing.

This morning the market has thought better of it. By 09:19, Day-Ahead was indicated 2.30p higher at 131.80p, Sep-26 up 4.51p at 132.55p and Q4-26 up 4.52p at 135.91p. Liquidity is thin, so treat the size of the move with some caution, but the direction is consistent across every contract.

The long end is where the buying is heaviest. Sum-28 is bid 5.42p higher at 70.25p, the largest gain on the board, with Sum-27 up 4.70p at 91.45p and Win-27 up 4.04p at 90.80p.

On the system, Britain opened 3 mcm/day long. Demand is up 9.14 mcm/day at 129.66, UKCS production has risen 4.20 to 70.60, and linepack is broadly flat at 335.01 mcm.

Norwegian supply is the one genuinely tightening thread. GASSCO reports total flows at 316.6 mcm/day, with annual maintenance at Kårstø taking out 13.6 mcm/day. That curtailment eases to 7.6 mcm/day tomorrow but stays in place until 19 August. Deliveries to Britain are down 1 mcm/day, mostly through Langeled at 44.00.

UK LNG sendout is unchanged at 8 mcm/day, South Hook 5.00 and Isle of Grain 3.20. Britain continues to export into the continental premium, 33.80 mcm/day to Belgium through IUK and 15.90 mcm/day to the Netherlands through BBL, with NBP at 129.50p against TTF at 131.75p, THE at 133.01p and Italian PSV at 145.21p.

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

Electricity Market

UK Day-Ahead baseload settled at 111.28 £/MWh on 5 August, up 22.44 £/MWh on the day. That is a 25% jump on a session when gas fell across the board.

Day-Ahead peak tells you why it is not a contradiction. Peak settled at 100.10 £/MWh, some 11.18 £/MWh below baseload, which is what happens when midday solar is strong enough to hollow out the daytime block and push the cost into the shoulders.

The forward curve behaved normally and followed gas down. Sep-26 baseload eased 5.67 £/MWh to 110.33, Q4-26 lost 5.89 to 112.94 and Win-26 fell 4.93 to 112.38.

Further out the moves shrink to almost nothing. Sum-27 slipped 1.79 £/MWh to 78.72, Win-27 just 0.90 to 80.74 and Win-28 a mere 0.20 to 69.67.

This morning power is tracking gas back up. Day-Ahead is offered 3.92 £/MWh higher at 115.20, Sep-26 up 4.52 at 114.85 and Win-26 up 4.52 at 116.90.

Wind is forecast broadly unchanged from yesterday and close to seasonal norms, so there is no repeat of yesterday’s squeeze signalled in the near term. Day-ahead gas-for-power demand is 9 mcm/day lower, again on stronger solar.

The weather outlook leans warm. The latest UK EC46 run continues to show above-average conditions throughout, with next week revised higher and temperatures now expected to peak on 12 August.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 settled at 79.45 $/barrel, up just 0.09 on the day and effectively unchanged.

The reason oil is sitting still is worth understanding, because it is the same reason gas fell. A proposed agreement between Iran and Oman would end five months of conflict between Iran and the United States, and would give Tehran greater control over vessels entering the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.

Markets are waiting on the US response before pricing it properly. Gas has already taken the optimistic view, oil has not, and that gap is the near-term risk in both directions.

Carbon drifted lower. EUA Dec-26 eased 0.25 to €81.09 and UK ETS Dec-26 fell 0.47 to £58.86, leaving the UK scheme at a meaningful discount to the European one.

Coal API2 for Cal-27 dropped 2.69 to $117.44/tonne. JKM fell 1.14 to $18.75/MMBtu and Henry Hub spot eased 0.14 to $2.60. Sterling was steady against the euro at 1.1666.

Commodity	Price	Change (day)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$79.45/barrel	+0.1%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$117.44/tonne	-2.2%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€81.09/tonne	-0.3%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£58.86/tonne	-0.8%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$18.75/MMBtu	-5.7%
TTF Gas (spot)	$17.76/MMBtu	-5.0%

Storage and Supply Outlook

European inventories reached roughly 58% full by 4 August, according to GIE AGSI. That is the headline, and on its own it reads comfortably enough.

The distribution is the problem. The Netherlands is only around 38% full, which leaves several North West European hubs materially more exposed to a cold start to winter than the aggregate suggests.

Injection demand therefore has further to run in exactly the region that sets the price Britain imports against, and that is a floor under the winter contracts regardless of how soft the prompt looks this week.

The LNG schedule into North West Europe is dense and almost entirely American. Eemshaven takes 79 mcm today, Gate 87 mcm and Wilhelmshaven 104 mcm tomorrow, with Dunkirk and Gate both due 104 and 102 mcm on 9 August.

Not one of those cargoes is bound for a UK terminal, which is the same pattern as last week and the reason British sendout is stuck at 8 mcm/day while the continent restocks.

What This Means for Your Business

Yesterday looked like a buying opportunity for about fourteen hours. If you were watching the screen rather than the curve, you have already missed most of it.

That is the practical lesson in a session like this one. An 8p fall that gives half of itself back before lunch the following day is not a trend, it is noise around a level, and no procurement decision should be built on it.

The shape is where the real information sits. Win-26 settled at 128.96p against Sum-27 at 86.75p, a step down of 42.21p per therm once this winter clears.

That gap was 47.67p at Monday’s close. It has narrowed by more than 5p in a single session, and it narrowed because winter fell while summer barely moved. The premium the market attaches to this coming winter is being taken apart faster than the rest of the curve.

For anyone renewing into a winter-weighted contract, that is the number to watch rather than the day-ahead print. If you are weighing when to fix, it is worth understanding how the seasonal step in gas pricing feeds into a fixed quote, because a contract starting in October carries that winter premium and one starting in April does not.

The long end argues the other way. Sum-28 gained 5.42p this morning, the biggest single move on the board, and it did so while the prompt was still recovering. Buying interest that far out on a quiet morning is usually someone with a view, not someone with a deadline.

If your consumption is large enough that a single fixed price feels like a coin toss, this is precisely the market where splitting the volume across several purchase decisions earns its keep, because it lets you take the winter premium out in pieces rather than betting the whole book on one morning’s screen.

The watch items are the US response to the Iran-Oman proposal, the Kårstø curtailment easing tomorrow, and Dutch storage, which is the weakest link in the European picture.

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 – 5 August 2026