UK Energy Market Report - 11 June 2026

Gas prices jump as a second day of US-Iran strikes and a Troll field outage lift the curve to multi-week highs, while a bright, breezy weekend pulls spot power lower.

UK wholesale gas prices jumped on Wednesday as a second day of air strikes between the United States and Iran pushed a fresh risk premium through the entire energy complex. NBP day-ahead settled at 124.00p/therm, up 6.25p on the session, and Winter-26 gas closed at a multi-week high. Power told a more nuanced story. Day-ahead electricity actually eased to £109.30/MWh, down £3.80, as forecasters pencilled in a bright, breezy weekend that cuts the call on gas-fired plant. That split is the story of the day, with the forward curve repricing on geopolitics and tightening supply while spot power takes a short-lived weather reprieve.

Gas Market

Wednesday’s move was driven from two directions at once. The geopolitical premium did most of the work, with President Trump warning of further strikes unless Tehran agrees to a peace deal, and traders pricing the risk that any escalation around the Strait of Hormuz could disrupt the LNG cargoes Europe leans on through the summer. Roughly a fifth of the world’s traded LNG passes through that chokepoint, so the market is understandably twitchy.

Supply fundamentals added to the squeeze. Norwegian pipeline flows into north-west Europe fell to around 280 mcm/day, down from 306.5 mcm/day earlier in the week, after maintenance at the Troll field was compounded by an unplanned compressor failure that knocked out a further 15 mcm/day. Troll is the single largest source of the gas Britain imports, so any wobble there feeds straight into the NBP.

The whole curve moved higher. Day-ahead led the way at 124.00p, but the prompt and seasonal contracts all followed, with Winter-26 closing at 124.20p, its highest in several weeks. Cal-27 at around 96.50p still sits at a hefty discount to the front, a reminder that the market expects today’s tightness to ease over a two-year horizon even as it prices winter risk aggressively.

The chart below tracks the Winter 2026/27 NBP gas contract over the past 90 days. The steady climb since mid-April, and this week’s push to a fresh high, shows how persistently the market has been pricing winter supply risk rather than treating each headline as a one-off.

Electricity Market

Power was the outlier. Day-ahead baseload settled at £109.30/MWh, down £3.80 on the day, as system operator forecasts showed wind and solar ramping up into the weekend. Wednesday’s mix had wind contributing around 20.8% of demand and solar a further 12.5%, with combined-cycle gas plant running at 8.6 GW, about 28% of the total. When renewables are expected to do more of the lifting, the day-ahead market needs less expensive gas generation, and the spot price softens accordingly.

The forward curve did not follow spot down. Winter-26 baseload firmed to £105.76/MWh, up £1.84, tracking the gas curve and the same supply concerns rather than the weekend weather. The gap between a soft prompt and a firm winter is the clearest sign that traders see the current renewable boost as temporary.

Nuclear is part of the backdrop. Six reactor units are offline, leaving less always-on low-carbon output and keeping gas as the marginal price-setter whenever wind drops away. That is why a sunny, windy spell can pull spot down sharply one day, and a still, cloudy one can send it straight back up.

The chart below shows the Winter 2026/27 GB baseload electricity contract over the past 90 days. It mirrors the gas market almost step for step, underlining how exposed UK power costs remain to imported gas and to the supply risks now building into winter.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Oil firmed alongside gas. Brent crude rose to $93.10/barrel, up $1.65 on the day, as the Middle East escalation kept a bid under the whole barrel and traders weighed the risk to flows through Hormuz. WTI tracked higher to around $89.20/barrel. European gas at the TTF hub climbed to roughly €50/MWh, its highest since 19 May, confirming this is a continental move and not just a British one.

Carbon added to the cost stack. EUA Dec-26 allowances rose to €77.50/tonne, up €1.35, while the UK ETS benchmark firmed to £56.27/tonne. JKM LNG, the Asian price that sets the pull on spot cargoes, held in the high teens at $18.89/MMBtu, which keeps Europe competing hard for every uncommitted shipment.

Storage and Supply Outlook

The supply picture is tightening rather than easing. European gas storage sits at around 43% full, the lowest level for this point in the year since 2022, and the slow Norwegian flows are doing nothing to help operators rebuild stocks before next winter. Injection season is the window in which Europe is meant to bank cheap summer gas, and this year that window is narrower than usual.

LNG is the swing factor, and it is not loosening. With JKM trading at a premium and the Hormuz risk premium in the price, spot cargoes are being pulled towards Asia and away from European terminals. Britain’s own send-out has been running below seasonal norms for much of the past fortnight. Ofgem data continues to show wholesale costs as the dominant driver of business energy bills, and nothing this week changes that.

What This Means for Your Business

The takeaway is to separate the two signals. The dip in day-ahead power is a weather story, and it will reverse the moment wind output falls back. The move that matters for anyone renewing a contract is the firmer forward curve, where both gas and power are pricing a real winter risk premium on top of genuinely tight supply.

For businesses with a renewal in the next few months, that argues for watching the curve closely rather than waiting for a pullback that may not come. A flexible approach can help here, splitting volume across several purchases instead of fixing everything on a single nervous day. You can read more about how that works on our flexible energy procurement page.

The Winter-26 charts in today’s report show the trend that should frame your thinking, a contract that has been re-rating steadily for two months and is now at a fresh high. If your renewal falls before April 2027, that is the line most relevant to your costs. To talk through what the current market means for your business and when to lock in, speak to one of our energy consultants today.

Previous report: UK Energy Market Report – 10 June 2026