UK Energy Market Report - 12 August 2026

Gas handed back about a third of Monday’s rally on Tuesday, but the winter premium barely moved, while day-ahead power added another 5.9% to 133.24 £/MWh and is offered 16.76 higher again this morning.

Tuesday was a correction on gas and a continuation on power.

NBP Day-Ahead settled 1.65p lower at 145.00 p/therm and the forward curve gave back between 2p and 5.5p a therm. UK day-ahead baseload power went the other way, settling 7.42 higher at 133.24 £/MWh.

The number that matters, though, is one that did not move. The winter premium the market built on Monday survived Tuesday’s sell-off almost intact.

Gas Market

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 145.00p on 11 August, down 1.65p or 1.1%. The curve fell considerably harder than the prompt.

Sep-26 lost 5.50p to 144.22p, a fall of 3.7%. Oct-26 shed 5.24p to 144.81p, Nov-26 4.79p to 148.36p and Q4-26 4.82p to 147.68p.

Winter-26 settled 4.25p lower at 144.96p and Q1-27 3.67p lower at 142.18p. Further out, Summer-27 lost 4.15p to 91.25p and Summer-28 2.23p to 67.48p.

Set that against Monday and the picture changes completely. Q4-26 gained 13.26p on Monday and gave back 4.82p on Tuesday, so 8.44p of that move is still standing. Sep-26 has kept 8.27p of its 13.77p gain and Winter-26 8.28p of 12.52p, roughly two thirds in each case.

TotalEnergies puts the pullback down to the previous session having run ahead of itself rather than to any change underneath, with strength at the front still reflecting near-term supply and competition for LNG cargoes.

Norway supplied the day’s supportive detail. Gassco put Norwegian Continental Shelf nominations at 317.4 mcm/day on 11 August, up 3.6 on the day, but network curtailments stood at 28.2 mcm/day and are expected to rise to 33.3 mcm/day by 18 August.

One forecast in yesterday’s review did not come off. TotalEnergies expected Vesterled deliveries back towards zero within days; instead Vesterled and Flags is up 1.00 mcm/day at 13.00 and Langeled has risen 7.30 to 51.40 on the 07:00 snapshot.

This morning is stronger again. Norwegian exit nominations have reached 325.5 mcm/day, flows to Britain are up 8 mcm/day, Langeled is running at 52 and UK LNG sendout is unchanged at 8 mcm/day.

Britain opened 16 mcm/day long, with demand at 131.61 mcm/day, UKCS production 86.90 and linepack 12.77 higher at 343.79 mcm.

The export picture is the structural story. At Tuesday’s settlement NBP was the cheapest of the seven European hubs quoted: 145.00p against TTF at 148.06p, PVB 147.73p, PEG 148.97p, THE 149.19p, Austrian VTP 151.42p and PSV 154.62p.

Britain is still shipping 34.70 mcm/day to Belgium through IUK and 11.45 to the Netherlands through BBL, and taking nothing back. Being the cheapest hub in Europe in mid-August is not the advantage it sounds like, because it is what keeps the pipes pointing outwards.

This morning the whole gas curve is indicated back above Monday’s settlement. At the 09:24 stamp Day-Ahead is 148.50p, up 3.50, with Sep-26 at 148.82p, Q4-26 at 152.36p and Winter-26 at 149.49p, each 4.5p to 4.7p higher.

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

Electricity Market

UK day-ahead baseload settled at 133.24 £/MWh on 11 August, up 7.42 or 5.9%. That is a second consecutive rise and puts it 46% above Friday’s 91.07.

Day-ahead peak barely participated, settling 1.03 higher at 119.32 £/MWh.

So the inversion this report has been tracking widened again. Baseload now sits 13.92 £/MWh above the peak block, against 7.53 on Monday, because midday solar keeps holding the 07:00 to 19:00 window down while the overnight and evening periods carry the cost.

Forward power did almost nothing. Sep-26 baseload added 0.39 to 120.00 £/MWh, Oct-26 0.35 to 117.66, Nov-26 0.14 to 128.40, Q4-26 0.38 to 124.09 and Winter-26 0.41 to 122.32.

The far curve fell instead. Summer-27 lost 3.06 to 80.74, Winter-27 1.43 to 83.86, Summer-28 1.23 to 63.99 and Winter-28 1.35 to 71.70. Peak forwards fell right across the board, between 2.51 and 3.25.

That combination steepened the power curve. Winter-26 now stands 41.58 £/MWh above Summer-27, up from 38.11 on Monday. Gas held its winter premium flat on Tuesday; power widened its own by 3.47.

The balancing market shows where the pressure actually sits. The daily minimum System Sell Price has run minus 14.07 £/MWh on 9 August, 47.77 on 10 August, 66.00 on 11 August and 99.42 so far today at 05:48.

That is a floor 113 £/MWh higher in three days, while the maximum System Buy Price eased from 227.00 on Monday to 202.61 on Tuesday and 194.00 today. The spread is compressing from below, not from above.

A note on yesterday’s morning numbers is owed. This report published a 148.97p indication for Tuesday’s gas day-ahead, which settled at 145.00p, and a 136.25 £/MWh offer for power, which settled at 133.24. Both overshot by around 3, having gone in opposite directions the day before.

This morning that same index is very firm indeed. Day-ahead baseload is offered at 150.00 £/MWh, up 16.76, and day-ahead peak at 141.20, up 21.88, with Q4-26 at 131.50 and Winter-26 at 125.75.

Wind is the reason. Forecast wind and solar output starts near 11,500 MWh today and falls to roughly 5,500 MWh around 16 August, against a seasonal norm close to 9,500. Gas-for-power demand is forecast 13 mcm/day higher day on day as a result.

Nuclear is not helping. Hartlepool 2 has been off since 7 August on a 16-day outage removing 620 MW and Heysham 1 reactor 1 is running at 498 of 610 MW. Heysham 1 comes fully off on 17 August for 15 days, Torness 1 on 21 August for 17 days and Heysham 2 reactor 8 on 4 September for 80 days.

France adds to it. Outages there peak tomorrow at around 10.7 GW on heat constraints, with further reactor shutdowns after a significant jellyfish influx, which thins the import cushion the interconnectors normally provide on an evening peak. Businesses watching what a tightening summer power market does to a fixed contract quote should be reading the forward curve, not the day-ahead headline.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 settled at 88.91 $/barrel on Tuesday, up 1.19 or 1.4%, and has moved higher again this morning.

Hormuz remains the driver. Both the United States and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis reported separate attacks on shipping on Tuesday, which has cut confidence in a near-term resolution to the Iran conflict and drained the optimism that had built around the Strait reopening.

Coal API2 for Cal-27 added 0.37 to $124.74/tonne, a move of 0.3%.

The LNG complex went the other way and followed gas down. JKM front month fell 0.79 to $20.66/MMBtu, TTF spot 0.56 to $19.99 and NBP spot 0.22 to $19.58. Henry Hub firmed 0.06 to $2.79.

Carbon was quiet in both schemes. EUA Dec-26 rose 0.17 to €82.44 and UK ETS Dec-26 0.11 to £59.13, with the UK contract indicated at £59.19 this morning.

At Tuesday’s 1.1698 sterling rate the European allowance is worth about £70.47, putting the UK scheme roughly £11.34 a tonne below its European equivalent, against £11.37 on Monday. The discount has held still through two very active energy sessions.

Sterling was effectively unchanged, at 1.1698 against the euro and 1.3504 against the dollar.

Commodity	Price	Change (day)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$88.91/barrel	+1.4%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$124.74/tonne	+0.3%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€82.44/tonne	+0.2%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£59.13/tonne	+0.2%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$20.66/MMBtu	-3.7%
TTF Gas (spot)	$19.99/MMBtu	-2.7%

Storage and Supply Outlook

European inventories were 59.12% full on 9 August, approximately 12 percentage points below the same period last year.

The spread across the continent is what makes that uncomfortable. Italy sits at 77% and Spain at 72%, but France is at 59%, Germany 47%, Britain 42%, and the Netherlands and Belgium 39% each.

Germany below 50% and the Netherlands below 40% in the second week of August is the line to carry forward, because those two set the marginal winter call on LNG.

European LNG supply is improving, with imports averaging around 343 mcm/day so far in August, roughly 17% above July. It is not yet enough to close a 12 point gap before the injection season ends.

British storage is close to static. South Hook is 74% full, Holehouse Farm 70%, Stublach 68%, Holford 61%, Aldbrough 49%, Hill Top 44%, Hornsea 41%, Isle of Grain 38% and Dragon 33%. Rough and Humbly Grove remain at zero.

The arrivals schedule into North West Europe carries ten cargoes to 19 August, six of them American, and Gate is again due 103 mcm from the Russian Federation on 15 August.

Once again not a single one is booked into a British terminal, which is why sendout sits at 8.10 mcm/day while Britain exports 46.15.

What This Means for Your Business

The useful signal this week is not Tuesday’s fall. It is how little of Monday’s rise it reversed.

Winter-26 settled 4.25p lower and Summer-27 4.15p lower, so the step down between them is 53.71p a therm against 53.80p on Monday. The winter premium widened by 8.12p in one session and has given back 0.09p.

A curve that falls in parallel has repriced. A curve that falls back through its own move has not. This one fell in parallel.

Put in renewal terms, Q4-26 gas closed Friday at 139.23p and stands at 147.68p today. Anyone who quoted an autumn start last week and has not gone back to the client is 8.45p a therm out of date.

Power tells a different story with the same numbers. Forward baseload moved less than half a pound across the whole near curve, yet the winter premium widened by 3.47 to 41.58 £/MWh, because the far end fell while the near end did not.

That divergence is the argument for buying a winter requirement in tranches rather than committing the whole volume to one screen price. Two sessions have moved the seasonal spread on both fuels without moving the headline much at all.

On day-ahead power, be careful what conclusion you draw. It is 46% higher than Friday on falling wind and a heat peak, not on anything structural, while Sep-26 baseload moved 39 pence over the same two sessions. A business on a fixed contract has felt none of it; a business exposed to the day-ahead has felt all of it.

The watch list into next week is short. Temperatures peak tomorrow before easing, wind troughs around 16 August, Norwegian curtailments rise to 33.3 mcm/day by 18 August, Heysham 1 comes fully off on 17 August, and Hormuz stays unresolved.

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 – 11 August 2026