UK Energy Market Report - 20 August 2026

The gas and power curves both split at Q1-27 on Wednesday, with everything nearer than November settling lower and everything beyond it higher, as NBP Summer-27 went through 100p a therm for the first time.

The curve split in two on Wednesday, and it split at the same contract on both fuels.

Everything from Day-Ahead out to November settled lower. Everything from Q1-27 outwards settled higher. Gas and power drew the line in exactly the same place.

The far end has been the laggard of this whole run. On Wednesday it was the only part that went up.

Gas Market

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 157.00p on 19 August, down 0.25p or 0.2%, the first fall in four sessions.

The near curve came off with it, but barely. Sep-26 lost 0.60p to 156.39p, Oct-26 0.40p to 157.38p and Nov-26 0.56p to 160.37p, while Q4-26 shed 0.47p to 160.00p.

Then the sign flips. Q1-27 gained 0.56p to 155.61p, Winter-26 0.04p to 157.83p, Summer-27 0.70p to 100.62p, Winter-27 1.23p to 99.76p, Summer-28 0.78p to 71.50p and Winter-28 0.80p to 78.48p.

Winter-27 was the biggest riser on the board. That has not happened once in this run.

Summer-27 also went through the 100p handle for the first time, closing at 100.62p against 91.25p on 11 August. That is 9.37p in six sessions on the contract this report has spent a fortnight describing as the one place holding out.

Because the near end fell and the far end rose, the shape finally came in. Winter-26 now sits 57.21p a therm above Summer-27, against 57.87p on Tuesday. That is the first narrowing of the winter premium in six sessions.

Britain is the cheapest hub in Europe again, one day after losing that position. NBP settled 157.00p against TTF 159.05p, PVB 159.27p, PEG 159.29p, THE 160.03p, Austrian VTP 161.78p and PSV 164.33p, with the discount to TTF narrowing to 2.05p from 3.21p.

Spain did most of that work. PVB repriced 2.91p higher while NBP fell, turning Tuesday’s 0.89p British premium into a 2.27p discount inside one session.

The awkward part is that supply was poor and the prompt fell anyway. Gassco reports unplanned maintenance at Karsto cutting throughput by 50 mcm/day on 19 August, with Norwegian Continental Shelf nominations dropping to 281.8 mcm/day, the lowest in around two months.

Cooler temperatures and stronger LNG arrivals are the explanation TotalEnergies gives, with Continental European LNG imports averaging roughly 333 mcm/day through August on S&P Global Commodity Insights data.

This morning the physical picture has recovered sharply. At the 07:00 stamp Langeled was 66.30 mcm/day, up 11.20, and linepack 357.10 mcm, up 25.69, the largest single-day build of this run. TotalEnergies reports the system opening 27 mcm/day long against 12 on Tuesday, Gassco exit nominations back to 315.5 mcm/day, and its own later read has Norwegian imports into Britain nominated at 83 mcm/day. It is not clean, though: a fresh unplanned outage at Karsto is taking 23 mcm/day out this morning on a process issue, and planned maintenance has started at Asgard.

LNG is still the weak leg and still has not moved. Sendout is 8.10 mcm/day, Isle of Grain 3.20 and South Hook 4.90, both unchanged for a fifth session, against 42.79 mcm/day leaving through IUK and BBL.

At the 09:19 stamp the whole curve is bid, and the far end hardest. Day-Ahead is indicated 157.50p and Q4-26 160.91p, both up around 0.5p to 0.9p, while Summer-28 is indicated 9.51p higher and Winter-28 7.52p higher. Those last two barely trade, so read them as direction and not as dealable prices.

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

Electricity Market

UK day-ahead baseload settled at 140.66 £/MWh on 19 August, down 2.34 or 1.6%. Day-ahead peak fell further, down 4.08 or 3.0% to 131.92 £/MWh.

So the summer inversion widened again, baseload now sitting 8.74 £/MWh above the peak block against 7.00 on Tuesday, which is a heavy solar middle of the day holding the 07:00 to 19:00 window down.

The forwards split at the same point gas did. Sep-26 baseload eased 0.50 to 126.10 £/MWh, Oct-26 0.60 to 124.62, Nov-26 0.37 to 135.17 and Q4-26 0.33 to 131.35.

Beyond that everything rose. Q1-27 added 1.47 to 129.59, Winter-26 0.56 to 130.48, Summer-27 0.55 to 86.36, Winter-27 0.34 to 88.14 and Summer-28 0.48 to 66.00. Only Winter-28 dissented, slipping 0.10 to 73.27.

Q1-27 was the biggest mover on the power board too, at 1.47, and it is the contract that carries a British January. Two fuels drawing the same line at the same contract on the same day is a curve repricing the far winter, not two markets reacting to their own news.

Winter-26 baseload has now risen on each of the last four sessions, from 124.77 on 13 August to 130.48. Over that same stretch the day-ahead has printed 145.50, 124.30, 138.94, 143.00 and 140.66, a 21 £/MWh range that has gone essentially nowhere. Winter-26 peak, meanwhile, is priced at 148.95 against that 130.48 baseload, which is the forward market saying the inversion is a summer artefact.

The balancing floor rose for a seventh consecutive session, the daily minimum System Sell Price settling at 112.00 £/MWh on 19 August against 109.85 on 18 August, 102.00 on 16 August and 70.40 on 13 August, with the maximum System Buy Price at 254.90 at 07:14. Today so far reads 112.71 to 171.42, but that is a part day stamped before 09:30 and this report has twice published part-day figures that resolved 30 to 45 £/MWh away.

The nuclear stack thins tomorrow. Torness 1 comes off on 21 August for 17 days and 640 MW, joining Heysham 1 reactor 1, off since 17 August, and Hartlepool 2, off since 7 August and not back until around 23 August. For roughly two days that is 1,870 MW out at once.

Wind is timed against it. Forecast wind and solar output runs near 9,000 MWh today and peaks around 10,350 MWh tomorrow, then falls to a trough near 6,550 MWh on 23 August, roughly 3,000 MWh under the seasonal norm, before recovering to about 9,350 MWh by 25 August.

Wednesday’s morning indications are worth owning, because they were the best pair this report has published. Gas Day-Ahead was indicated 156.63p and settled 157.00p, out 0.37, with Q4-26 out 0.02. Power Day-Ahead was indicated 139.50 £/MWh and settled 140.66, out 1.16, and Summer-28 landed exactly on 66.00.

That changes nothing. The same index missed the power day-ahead by 35.50 on 13 August and 20.70 on 14 August, and called gas 2.00p light across four contracts on 18 August. A near-perfect morning is what an unreliable index looks like some of the time, so the figures above are quoted with their timestamp and no direction is built on them.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 settled at 91.62 $/barrel on 19 August, up 0.60 or 0.7%, a third consecutive rise and the highest close of this run.

TotalEnergies reports shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz unchanged on Wednesday, with talks between the United States and Iran still deadlocked, and oil moving higher again this morning as the standoff keeps routes disrupted.

Coal API2 for Cal-27 added 1.43 to $127.06/tonne, a rise of 1.1% and its largest daily move of this run.

Carbon fell on both sides. EUA Dec-26 lost 0.60 to €81.71 and UK ETS Dec-26 0.25 to £59.04, with the UK contract indicated at £58.91 at 08:54 this morning.

At Wednesday’s 1.1681 sterling rate the European allowance is worth about £69.95, putting the UK scheme £10.91 a tonne below its European equivalent, against £11.16 on Tuesday. Businesses carrying a UK ETS obligation are still buying into the cheaper of the two schemes, and that advantage has narrowed twice in three sessions.

The LNG complex went in two directions for the first time in a week. JKM front month rose 0.20 to $22.09/MMBtu and Henry Hub 0.12 to $2.94, while TTF spot fell 0.14 to $21.56 and NBP spot edged up 0.08 to $21.36.

That widened the JKM premium over TTF back to 0.53 $/MMBtu from 0.19 on Tuesday, reversing three consecutive narrowings in a single session. Asia pulling away again is the opposite of what would loosen European sendout, and it lines up with British terminals stuck at 8 mcm/day.

Sterling was flat against the euro at 1.1681 and firmer against the dollar at 1.3603.

Commodity	Price	Change (day)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$91.62/barrel	+0.7%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$127.06/tonne	+1.1%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€81.71/tonne	-0.7%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£59.04/tonne	-0.4%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$22.09/MMBtu	+0.9%
TTF Gas (spot)	$21.56/MMBtu	-0.6%

Storage and Supply Outlook

Germany is the number that moved. FNB Gas put German storage at 50.06% on 17 August and warned inventories remain critically low ahead of winter, which is the specific reason TotalEnergies gives for Winter-26 NBP holding near 158p while the prompt eased.

The continental spread is unchanged at country level. Italy sits at 78% full and Spain at 73%, but France is at 62%, Germany 49%, Belgium 43%, the Netherlands 41% and Britain 40%.

Britain lost a point, back to 40% after a day at 41%, and it remains the emptiest system on the list.

At site level it was mixed for the first time in three days. Holford gained two points to 64% and Hornsea one to 47%, while Hill Top lost four to 27%, Stublach two to 64%, and Aldbrough and South Hook one each, to 33% and 66%.

Holehouse Farm held at 70%, Isle of Grain at 35% and Dragon at 33%, with Rough and Humbly Grove still at zero. Two sites up against three down in injection season is an improvement on Tuesday, not a recovery, and the reason has not changed: summer gas still costs more than the winter it would be injected for.

The arrivals schedule into North West Europe carries ten cargoes and 947 mcm out to 23 August. Five are American, one Algerian into Fos, one from Trinidad and Tobago into Gate, two unspecified, and one from the Russian Federation into Dunkirk on 21 August. That Russian cargo is the first to appear on this schedule in the period these reports have covered.

None of the ten is British. That is a fifth consecutive schedule with no UK arrival, and it is why sendout has not moved off 8 mcm/day.

What This Means for Your Business

Q4-26 gas closed on 7 August at 139.23p and settled Wednesday at 160.00p. That is 20.77p a therm in eight trading sessions, worth roughly £7,090 a year on a 1 GWh gas load.

The number that changed on Wednesday is not that one, though. It is Summer-27, through 100p for the first time, and Winter-27 at 99.76p against 90.80p on 11 August.

For a fortnight this report has been able to say the repricing was seasonal, confined to the next two winters, and that a buyer covering 2028 faced a different market from a buyer covering next winter. Wednesday is the first session that undercuts that.

One session does not make a trend, and the far curve has given back moves like this twice already in August. But the cheap end of the curve got less cheap on a day the expensive end got cheaper, and that is the exception worth watching.

The method is unchanged and the timing is tighter. Businesses that can take their winter cover separately from the rest of the term still have the better hand, because the winter premium at 57.21p is only 0.66p off its high for the run. What has changed is that waiting for the far curve to stay still is no longer obviously free.

On power the near-term risk is a calendar problem rather than a price one. Anyone whose exposure sits in the half-hourly shape of a UK electricity supply should be watching the 21 to 23 August window, not the day-ahead headline.

The watch list is short. Karsto is out again by 23 mcm/day this morning after cutting 50 on Wednesday, Asgard maintenance has started, Torness 1 comes off tomorrow, and German storage sits at 50% with the operator calling it critically low.

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 – 19 August 2026