UK Energy Market Report - 19 August 2026

Every gas and power contract on the curve settled higher on Tuesday, with NBP Day-Ahead up 4.65p to 157.25p and UK baseload up 4.06 to 143.00 £/MWh, while Britain lost its place as Europe’s cheapest gas hub.

Tuesday was the first session of this run in which nothing went down.

Every NBP contract from Day-Ahead to Winter-28 settled higher, and so did every UK baseload and every UK peak contract on the same list. Thirty three prices, thirty three gains.

The far curve had been the one place holding out. It stopped holding out.

Gas Market

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 157.25p on 18 August, up 4.65p or 3.0%, the highest close of this run.

The near curve did not grind this time, it jumped. Sep-26 gained 4.45p to 156.99p, Oct-26 4.67p to 157.78p and Nov-26 4.84p to 160.93p. Q4-26 added 4.84p to 160.47p, Q1-27 5.43p to 155.05p and Winter-26 5.13p to 157.79p.

Monday’s move was 1.2p to 1.3p on the same contracts, so Tuesday is roughly three and a half times that, in the same direction.

The far end joined in for the first time in four sessions, Summer-27 adding 3.41p to 99.92p and Summer-28 1.35p to 70.72p.

The shape still stretched, because the near end moved further. Winter-26 now sits 57.87p a therm above Summer-27, against 56.15p on Monday and 53.73p last Thursday. That is the widest winter premium of this run, and it has widened on five of the last six sessions.

Britain is no longer the cheapest hub in Europe. NBP settled 157.25p against Spain’s PVB at 156.36p, so Britain sits 0.89p above it, having been 1.50p below on Monday and below every hub on the list.

The rest are still dearer: TTF 160.46p, PEG 160.84p, THE 161.38p, Austrian VTP 162.53p and PSV 162.66p. The discount to TTF widened again to 3.21p from 2.88p, and 43.35 mcm/day is still leaving Britain through IUK and BBL to serve that gap.

The awkward part is that supply improved and prices rose anyway. At the 07:00 stamp Langeled was 59.90 mcm/day, up 9.10, and Vesterled and Flags 13.00, up 3.00, so Norwegian delivery into Britain recovered 12.10 mcm/day in a single day after Monday’s fall.

UKCS production added 1.00 to 88.30 mcm/day, linepack gained 4.18 to 341.46 mcm and TotalEnergies reports the system opening 12 mcm/day long. A market that reprices 4.65p on a comfortable morning is not pricing today, it is pricing winter.

LNG is still the weak leg. Sendout is nominated at 8.10 mcm/day again, Isle of Grain 3.20 and South Hook 4.90, both unchanged again.

Weather turns back towards the bulls after today. The forecast has today near 17.5°C against a seasonal mean around 16.3°C, then four consecutive days below it, bottoming near 14.9°C on 22 August. TotalEnergies also flags two-day planned outages at Asgard and Troll from tomorrow, curtailing roughly 15 mcm/day.

At the 09:30 stamp the near curve has given a little back, Day-Ahead indicated 156.63p, Sep-26 156.36p and Q4-26 159.98p, while Winter-27 is bid another 1.21p to 99.74p. The softening is at the front, not the back.

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

Electricity Market

UK day-ahead baseload settled at 143.00 £/MWh on 18 August, up 4.06 or 2.9%. Day-ahead peak rose 3.76 or 2.8% to 136.00 £/MWh.

That leaves baseload 7.00 £/MWh above the peak block, against 6.70 on Monday. The summer inversion this report has been tracking has widened slightly, which is what long daylight and a heavy solar middle of the day does to the peak window.

The change worth noticing is in the forwards, which have started following. Sep-26 baseload rose 1.48 to 126.60 £/MWh, Oct-26 1.90 to 125.22, Nov-26 2.62 to 135.54, Q4-26 2.56 to 131.68, Q1-27 2.66 to 128.12 and Winter-26 2.61 to 129.92.

On Monday a prompt that moved 14.64 dragged the curve about 1.20. On Tuesday a prompt that moved 4.06 dragged it 2.56 to 2.66. The curve is now moving roughly two thirds of the prompt rather than a twelfth of it, because this move is gas, not weather.

The far end confirms it, Summer-27 up 1.63 to 85.80 and Summer-28 0.69 to 65.52 after both slipped on Monday. Peak forwards show the inversion is a summer artefact rather than a structural one: Winter-26 peak is priced at 149.14 £/MWh against 129.92 baseload.

The balancing floor has stopped climbing. The daily minimum System Sell Price settled at 109.85 £/MWh on 18 August, against 109.60 on 17 August, 102.00 on 16 August and 99.60 on 15 August. Five consecutive rises since 13 August, but the last one was 0.25 after increments of 7.60 and 2.40.

Two corrections to Monday’s report, both from part-day figures. It quoted 116.27 as Tuesday’s minimum and the session closed at 109.85, and 182.45 as the maximum System Buy Price against a close of 228.07 at 20:18. Part-day system prices read at 09:3x resolve a long way off in both directions, for the second time in three days.

The nuclear stack thins out next 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 not back until around 23 August. For roughly two days from 21 August that is 1,870 MW of capacity off at once.

Wind and solar is why those days matter, and the forecast has been revised hard. Output is near 8,400 MWh today against a seasonal norm around 9,550 MWh, peaks near 10,350 MWh on 21 August, then falls to a trough near 6,550 MWh on 23 August before recovering to roughly 9,350 MWh by 25 August. Monday’s edition put that trough at 8,400 MWh on 21 August, so it has moved two days later and 1,850 MWh deeper, into the same window as the reactor outages.

The part worth owning is the gas index this time, not the power one. Monday’s report carried 155.25p as the morning indication for Tuesday’s gas Day-Ahead and it settled 157.25p, 2.00p under. Sep-26 was indicated 155.32p and settled 156.99p, Q4-26 158.67p against 160.47p and Winter-26 155.72p against 157.79p, all four under by 1.67p to 2.07p.

Power was indicated 142.00 £/MWh and settled 143.00, out by 1.00. So on a morning when the index called gas 2p light across the board, it called power to within a pound. This report has been treating gas indications as quotable and the power day-ahead as noise, and Tuesday inverted that, which is the argument for quoting either with its timestamp and building nothing on top of it.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 settled at 91.02 $/barrel on 18 August, up 0.15 or 0.2%. After Monday’s 2.35 jump that is a market holding the 90 dollar handle rather than pushing on from it, though TotalEnergies reports oil rising again this morning with the United States and Iran both holding firm and expectations of a peace deal fading.

Coal API2 for Cal-27 added 0.57 to $125.63/tonne. Carbon rose on both sides, EUA Dec-26 gaining 0.73 to €82.31 and UK ETS Dec-26 0.22 to £59.29.

At Tuesday’s 1.1684 sterling rate the European allowance is worth about £70.45, putting the UK scheme £11.16 a tonne below its European equivalent, against £10.68 on Monday and £11.00 on Friday. That reverses two consecutive narrowings, and it matters to anyone whose costs sit on the UK side of that gap.

The LNG complex firmed across the board, JKM front month up 0.27 to $21.89/MMBtu, TTF spot 0.62 to $21.70 and NBP spot 0.61 to $21.27.

That narrowed the JKM premium over TTF again to 0.19 $/MMBtu, from 0.53 on Monday and 0.80 on Friday. Three consecutive narrowings, and Europe is now within twenty cents of Asia. That is what a continent bidding for cargoes looks like before the cargoes arrive.

Sterling eased against both majors, at 1.1684 to the euro and 1.3529 to the dollar.

Commodity	Price	Change (day)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$91.02/barrel	+0.2%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$125.63/tonne	+0.5%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€82.31/tonne	+0.9%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£59.29/tonne	+0.4%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$21.89/MMBtu	+1.3%
TTF Gas (spot)	$21.70/MMBtu	+2.9%

Storage and Supply Outlook

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

Britain held its 41% and lost ground again at site level, for a second consecutive day. Holehouse Farm is 70% full, South Hook 67%, Stublach 66%, Holford 62%, Hornsea 46%, Isle of Grain 35%, Aldbrough 34%, Dragon 33% and Hill Top 31%, with Rough and Humbly Grove at zero.

Against Monday, Stublach is down three points, Aldbrough and Hill Top two each, South Hook and Isle of Grain one, and only Hornsea is up. Eight of the nine active sites are flat or lower in the middle of injection season.

The reason is the shape of the curve, and Tuesday made it worse. Summer gas costs more than the winter it would be injected for, so there is no margin in filling a site, and the winter premium widened another 1.72p on the day.

The arrivals schedule into North West Europe carries ten cargoes and 922 mcm out to 24 August, seven of them American, one Algerian into Fos and one from Trinidad and Tobago into Gate.

None of them is British. Monday’s schedule showed a 103 mcm American cargo into Milford Haven on 24 August and it is not on today’s list. TotalEnergies still expects one cargo at UK shores next week, beyond the schedule’s horizon, so this is a slip in timing rather than a cancellation, but Britain’s LNG leg is thin and getting no help.

What This Means for Your Business

Q4-26 gas closed on 7 August at 139.23p and settled Tuesday at 160.47p. That is 21.24p a therm in seven trading sessions, and it was 16.40p when this report ran the same sum yesterday.

On a 1 GWh annual gas load, 21.24p a therm is worth roughly £7,250 a year. Sep-26 has added 21.04p over the same seven sessions and Winter-26 21.10p, so it is not one contract carrying it.

The shape still says seasonal repricing rather than a commodity one, so a buyer covering next winter and a buyer covering 2028 are looking at two different markets. Businesses that can buy a winter separately from the rest of the term have had a far better week than those holding out for one clean number.

A fully uniform session, prompt and curve, near and far, gas and power, is a market pricing risk rather than a forecast, and it did it on a morning when supply was comfortable. Norwegian flows recovered 12.10 mcm/day, the system opened long and linepack rose, and none of it held prices down. Anyone tracking where the NBP curve actually sits today should be reading the winter contracts, not the prompt.

On power, Winter-26 baseload has now risen on five consecutive sessions while the headline day-ahead swung 14.6% down and 11.8% up inside two of them. The contract you buy is the one that has been quietly going up.

The watch list is specific. Asgard and Troll curtail roughly 15 mcm/day from tomorrow, Torness 1 comes off on 21 August into a 1,870 MW outage window, wind troughs near 6,550 MWh on 23 August, and for the first time in this run Britain is not the cheapest hub in Europe.

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Previous report: UK Energy Market Report – 18 August 2026