UK Energy Market Report - 18 August 2026

Both fuels rose together on Monday, with every NBP near contract up 1.2p to 1.3p and UK day-ahead power recovering 11.8% of Friday’s 14.6% collapse, while the far curve slipped on both.

Monday put the two fuels back on the same side, and the power prompt took back most of Friday’s collapse.

Every NBP contract out to Winter-27 settled higher again, and day-ahead baseload rose 11.8% after falling 14.6% the session before.

The far curve is the one place nothing is happening. Summer-28 and Winter-28 slipped fractionally on both fuels, which is the whole story of this run in one line.

Gas Market

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 152.60p on 17 August, up 1.85p or 1.2%, the highest close of this run.

The near curve moved as a block rather than a spike. Sep-26 gained 1.31p to 152.54p, Oct-26 1.24p to 153.11p and Nov-26 1.22p to 156.09p. Q4-26 added 1.27p to 155.63p, Q1-27 1.32p to 149.62p and Winter-26 1.30p to 152.66p.

That uniformity matters. Friday’s move was 2.2p to 2.8p and looked like a repricing; Monday’s is 1.2p to 1.3p on every single near contract, which is a market that has settled on a level and is grinding rather than jumping.

The far curve went the other way for the first time in three sessions. Summer-27 added 0.34p to 96.51p, but Summer-28 lost 0.21p to 69.37p and Winter-28 0.09p to 77.05p.

So the shape stretched again. Winter-26 now sits 56.15p a therm above Summer-27, against 55.19p on Friday and 53.73p on Thursday. That is the widest winter premium of this run, and it has widened on four of the last five sessions.

Britain is still the cheapest hub in Europe, and this time by more, not less. NBP settled 152.60p against PVB 154.10p, TTF 155.48p, PEG 155.89p, THE 156.34p, Austrian VTP 158.03p and PSV 160.37p.

The discount to TTF widened to 2.88p from 1.48p on Friday, reversing three consecutive narrowings in one session, because TTF rose 3.25p while NBP rose only 1.85p. That gap is being set at the other end of the interconnector, and 44.80 mcm/day is still leaving the country through IUK and BBL to serve it.

Norwegian supply eased back. Gassco has recorded total exit nominations of 320.3 mcm/day against 323.9 mcm/day on 17 August, with further production returning from maintenance from Thursday onwards.

Flows into Britain took the hit. At the 07:00 stamp Langeled was 50.00 mcm/day, down 1.40, and Vesterled and Flags 10.00, down 2.00, so Norwegian delivery into the UK is off roughly 3.40 mcm/day in one day.

The system absorbed it comfortably. UKCS production rose 2.00 to 86.60 mcm/day, linepack gained 6.47 to 332.17 mcm and TotalEnergies reports the system opening 4 mcm/day long.

LNG remains the weak leg and has not moved for days. Sendout is nominated at 8 mcm/day again, Isle of Grain 3.20 and South Hook 4.90, both unchanged.

The weather has stopped helping the bulls. The EC46 forecast has today near 19.6°C against a seasonal mean around 16.3°C, falling back to normal by tomorrow and to roughly 15.8°C on 23 and 24 August before rising again next week.

At the 09:32 stamp the curve is bid another 2.6p to 3.1p across the near contracts. Day-Ahead is indicated 155.25p, Sep-26 155.32p, Q4-26 158.67p and Winter-26 155.72p.

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

Electricity Market

UK day-ahead baseload settled at 138.94 £/MWh on 17 August, up 14.64 or 11.8%. That takes back roughly seven tenths of Friday’s 21.20 fall, not all of it.

Day-ahead peak went further, up 26.24 or 24.8% to 132.24 £/MWh, which still leaves it 1.67 below where it stood on Thursday.

The inversion this report has been tracking narrowed sharply as a result. Baseload now sits 6.70 £/MWh above the peak block, against 18.30 on Friday and 11.59 on Thursday.

Low wind is the mechanism. TotalEnergies forecasts gas-for-power demand up 6 mcm/day today as wind output weakens, and the prompt has repriced around exactly that.

The forwards did not chase it. Sep-26 baseload rose 1.62 to 125.12 £/MWh, Oct-26 1.82 to 123.32, Nov-26 1.06 to 132.92, Q4-26 1.18 to 129.12, Q1-27 1.49 to 125.45 and Winter-26 1.33 to 127.30.

So a prompt that moved 14.64 dragged the curve about 1.20. That gap between the two is the point: the prompt is trading weather, the curve is trading gas.

The far end slipped, as it did in gas. Summer-28 lost 0.09 to 64.83 and Winter-28 0.02 to 72.80, while Summer-27 gained 0.71 to 84.17 and Winter-27 0.89 to 86.59.

Peak forwards confirm the inversion is a summer daylight artefact. Winter-26 peak is priced at 144.97 £/MWh against 127.30 baseload.

The balancing floor keeps climbing. The daily minimum System Sell Price has risen on every settled day since 13 August, from 70.40 through 96.02, 99.60 and 102.00 to 109.60 on 17 August, with today indicated at 116.27 on a part day.

One correction to Friday’s report, which quoted 139.48 as Monday’s minimum. That was a part-day figure read at 09:20; the full session closed at 109.60. The direction was right, the level was not.

The daily maximum System Buy Price hit 350.00 £/MWh at 06:14 on 17 August, still the high of the run, against 182.45 indicated so far today.

The nuclear stack thins further this week. Heysham 1 reactor 1 has been fully off since 17 August for 15 days, Torness 1 joins it on 21 August for 17 days, and Hartlepool 2 is due back around 23 August after 16 days off.

Wind and solar is forecast near 11,100 MWh today against a seasonal norm around 9,550 MWh, then falling hard to a trough near 8,400 MWh on 21 August before recovering to roughly 10,900 MWh by 25 August.

Now the part worth owning, because it goes the other way for once. Friday’s report carried 139.00 £/MWh as the morning indication for Monday’s baseload day-ahead, and it settled 138.94. Out by 0.06.

Set that beside a 35.50 miss on 13 August and a 20.70 miss on 14 August and the conclusion holds rather than changes: the index is not biased in a direction, it is unreliable in size, and one near-exact print is luck. Treat this morning’s 142.00 indication as a direction at a 09:32 timestamp, not as where the day closes.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 settled at 90.87 $/barrel on 17 August, up 2.35 or 2.7%, and through the 90 dollar handle for the first time in this run.

TotalEnergies attributes the climb to stalled efforts to end the conflict involving Iran, with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed.

The same note reports the UK Government delaying decisions on North Sea oil and gas projects, against a summer of persistent heatwaves and wildfires.

Coal API2 for Cal-27 was flat in practice, up 0.10 to $125.05/tonne.

Carbon went in two directions. EUA Dec-26 slipped 0.21 to €81.58 while UK ETS Dec-26 gained 0.18 to £59.07.

At Monday’s 1.1696 sterling rate the European allowance is worth about £69.75, putting the UK scheme £10.68 a tonne below its European equivalent, against £11.00 on Friday and £11.72 on Thursday. That is a second consecutive narrowing.

The LNG complex firmed again. JKM front month rose 0.20 to $21.61/MMBtu, TTF spot 0.47 to $21.08, NBP spot 0.27 to $20.67 and Henry Hub eased 0.02 to $2.77.

The JKM premium over TTF narrowed to 0.53 $/MMBtu from 0.80 on Friday, because Europe bid harder than Asia rather than the other way round. That is the first sign in a week of Europe competing for cargoes on price.

Sterling eased against the euro at 1.1696 and firmed against the dollar at 1.3543.

Commodity	Price	Change (day)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$90.87/barrel	+2.7%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$125.05/tonne	+0.1%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€81.58/tonne	-0.3%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£59.07/tonne	+0.3%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$21.61/MMBtu	+0.9%
TTF Gas (spot)	$21.08/MMBtu	+2.3%

Storage and Supply Outlook

EU gas storage stood at roughly 60.8% full on 15 August, which TotalEnergies describes as still below the level seen at this point in recent years.

The continental spread has not moved. Italy sits at 78% and Spain at 73%, but France is at 62%, Germany 49%, the Netherlands and Belgium at 41% and 43%, and Britain at 41%.

Britain gained a point at country level, and lost ground at almost every individual site. Holehouse Farm is 70% full, Stublach 69%, South Hook 68%, Holford 62%, Hornsea 45%, Aldbrough 36%, Isle of Grain 36%, Dragon 33% and Hill Top 33%. Rough and Humbly Grove remain at zero.

Against Friday that is Aldbrough down from 37%, Hill Top from 35%, Holford from 63% and South Hook from 69%, with only Stublach up a point, so Britain is still net drawing down in the middle of injection season.

TotalEnergies names the reason directly. Backwardation across the forward curve removes the incentive to inject, because summer gas costs more than the winter it would be sold into.

The arrivals schedule into North West Europe carries ten cargoes and 987 mcm out to 24 August, eight of them American and one from Trinidad and Tobago.

One of them is British. A US-loaded cargo of 103 mcm is scheduled into Milford Haven on 24 August, the first UK booking to appear on this schedule in a week.

What This Means for Your Business

Q4-26 closed on 7 August at 139.23p and settled Monday at 155.63p. That is 16.40p a therm in six trading sessions, and this morning it is indicated another 3.04p higher again.

Sep-26 has added 16.59p over the same six sessions and Winter-26 15.97p.

On a 1 GWh annual gas load, 16.40p a therm is worth roughly £5,600 a year. A quote issued before 10 August is not stale by a rounding error, it is stale by that.

The shape still says this is a seasonal repricing rather than a commodity one. Winter-26 now stands 56.15p above Summer-27, the widest of the run, while Summer-28 actually fell to 69.37p. Anyone who needs a winter position rather than a whole-term one is looking at a very different market from anyone buying two years out.

On power, Monday and Friday together are the argument against judging a contract by the prompt. Day-ahead fell 14.6% then rose 11.8% inside two sessions, while Winter-26 baseload moved 1.20 and 1.33 in the same direction both times.

The curve is what a fixed electricity price is actually built from, and it has gone up quietly on every one of the last four sessions while the headline number bounced.

The watch list into this week is short. Torness 1 comes off on 21 August, wind troughs near 8,400 MWh the same day, Britain is still drawing down storage in injection season, and Brent has cleared 90 dollars with the Strait of Hormuz shut.

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Previous report: UK Energy Market Report – 17 August 2026