UK Energy Market Report - 21 September 2026

Every NBP gas contract settles higher and the whole power curve follows, while day-ahead baseload collapses to £28.00/MWh on weekend wind

Gas Market

The buying was concentrated in the contracts that matter for this winter. Oct-26 rose 7.43p, or 3.90%, to 198.16p, Nov-26 7.22p to 201.03p, Q4-26 7.20p to 200.47p and Dec-26 6.97p to 202.25p.

Winter-26 added 6.43p to 199.07p and Q1-27 5.63p to 197.63p.

The far curve joined in but moved less. Summer-27 rose 3.97p to 134.49p, Winter-27 3.28p to 129.04p, Summer-28 1.90p to 82.60p and Winter-28 1.29p to 89.35p.

Britain remains the cheapest of the seven European hubs, and by a wider margin than on Thursday. At 196.70p, NBP now sits 3.35p under the Dutch TTF at 200.05p, against 1.63p a session earlier. Italy’s PSV is dearest at 208.40p, 11.70p above NBP, with Austria’s VTP at 202.32p, Germany’s THE at 201.38p, Spain’s PVB at 200.07p and France’s PEG at 199.19p.

Friday’s morning marks missed in both directions on the same page. Day-ahead was marked at 198.03p at 08:58 and settled 1.33p lower, which ended a five-session run of marks landing above the close, but Winter-26 at 196.90p and Q1-27 at 196.50p both settled 2.17p and 1.13p above their marks. There is no reliable direction in these indications, only a timestamp.

At 09:19 this morning the front of the curve is marked lower and the back is not. Day-ahead is indicated at 191.25p, 5.45p under settlement, Oct-26 at 190.50p, 7.66p under, and Winter-26 at 192.37p, 6.70p under. Summer-27 is marked 2.51p higher at 137.00p. Liquidity thins sharply beyond Winter-27, so read the far-curve marks as direction and nothing more.

Norway is still carrying two problems rather than one. Total exit nominations are 271.7 mcm/day, with the Troll compressor failure unresolved and unplanned work at Sleipner now curtailing a further 10.5 mcm/day. On Friday the Sleipner outage was expected to finish on 20 September and hand back about 11 mcm/day.

At the 07:00 read Langeled was delivering nothing into Britain, from 8.00 mcm/day on Friday morning, while Vesterled and Flags came back to 4.00 from zero, so Norwegian deliveries are half what they were before the weekend. Market commentary this morning points to a modest pick-up since; the 07:00 snapshot does not yet show it.

Against the previous 07:00 figures demand is 38.64 higher at 125.30 mcm/day, UKCS production is 1.10 lower at 92.20 and linepack 6.59 lower at 344.50, though the system still opened around 11 mcm/day long. Exports to the Netherlands through BBL eased to 5.71 from 9.31, and 16.00 mcm/day is going to Belgium through IUK. Gas burn in power stations is up about 16 mcm/day run-on-run as wind falls away.

Electricity Market

Peak settled below baseload for a third session, and the gap narrowed again, to £15.04 from £18.45 and £33.36 before that. Both prices collapsed because Saturday was forecast very windy, which the imbalance market went on to confirm.

The curve did the opposite. Oct-26 baseload rose £6.57, or 4.46%, to £153.88, Nov-26 £5.06 to £162.17, Q4-26 £5.10 to £158.51 and Winter-26 £4.36 to £158.95. Summer-27 added £2.27 to £105.75 and Winter-27 £2.51 to £107.00. On the peak side Nov-26 reached £187.30 and Winter-26 £181.86.

Friday’s low offer was the right call. This report carried a day-ahead baseload offer of £29.00/MWh against a £103.95 settlement and flagged it as an indication; it settled at £28.00, out by £1.00. Day-ahead peak was offered at £16.00 and settled £3.04 lower, and Winter-26 marked at £159.23 settled within £0.28. After four sessions of forward marks overshooting the close, Friday’s landed close on every contract.

At 09:19 this morning day-ahead baseload is offered at £208.00 and day-ahead peak at £208.34, £180.00 and £195.38 above Friday’s settlement, as the wind drops away. Forward baseload is marked £0.20 to £5.34 higher with Winter-26 at £161.90, the exception being Oct-26 at £152.00, £1.88 under settlement.

The imbalance market held at the top and missed at the bottom again. Friday’s part-day row published here read £186.25 at the top and £49.58 at the bottom. The maximum settled at exactly £186.25, re-stamped 05:45, but the minimum finished at minus £14.46 at 22:44, £64.04 below the part-day figure.

The weekend was the wind story in full. Saturday ranged from £168.00 down to minus £14.30, and Sunday from £233.00 at 20:48 to minus £50.00 at 14:18, a £283.00 swing inside one day. This morning’s part-day row shows £238.00 at 02:54 and £114.43 at 03:49, and neither is settled.

Wind is now the problem rather than the relief. Combined wind and solar generation is forecast at about 9,000 MWh today, falling to roughly 6,750 on the 22nd and 23rd, then recovering to about 9,100 by the 26th. The seasonal norm across that window is 10,300 to 10,450, so output is below par on every day of it. The shape matches Friday’s forecast, so this is a firming picture rather than a new one.

Temperatures are forecast above the seasonal mean on every day to 28 September, peaking near 16.6°C on the 22nd against a mean close to 13.5°C, which takes some of the heating demand out of the same week. Nuclear outages are unchanged at 2,725 MW across five units; Torness 1 and Heysham 1 reactor 1 are due back around 25 September and Hartlepool 2 at the end of the month, with a further 112 MW derating at Heysham 1 from 29 September running 100 days.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent settled at $103.87/barrel on 18 September, down $0.95 or 0.91%, a third consecutive fall that leaves it $4.88 below the month’s high close of $108.75 on 15 September. Iran and the United States traded fresh threats over the weekend, and prices eased again this morning regardless, which says more about supply comfort than about the rhetoric.

The LNG benchmarks moved with Europe. JKM front month rose $0.76 to $27.51/MMBtu and NBP spot $0.76 to $26.34, so Asia’s premium over Britain was unchanged at $1.17. TTF spot added $0.85 to $26.70 and Henry Hub $0.07 to $2.97.

The two carbon markets moved apart. EUA Dec-26 gained €0.86 to €86.89 while UK ETS Dec-26 lost £0.40 to £59.36. At 1.1644 the UK allowance is worth about €69.12, a €17.77 discount to the European price, widened from €16.40 on Thursday.

Sterling eased 0.0007 to 1.1644 against the euro and firmed 0.0038 to 1.3393 against the dollar.

Storage and Supply Outlook

European storage is filling but the gap to last year is not closing. EU inventories stood at 69.62% on 20 September, close to twelve percentage points behind the same point in 2025. On the country map France is shown at 79%, four points above Friday’s reading, with Italy at 85%, Spain at 73%, Germany at 56% and Britain at 52%, and the two Benelux labels at 54% and 59%.

British sites gained over the weekend. Aldbrough rose seven points to 60%, Hill Top four to 42%, Stublach three to 82% and Hornsea two to 65%. South Hook fell three points to 69% and Isle of Grain two to 25% as both sent gas out. HolFord (75%), Holehouse Farm (70%) and Dragon (33%) were unchanged, Rough remains empty and Humbly Grove sits at 1%.

UK LNG sendout was 13.30 mcm/day at 07:00, Isle of Grain 7.50 and South Hook 5.80, up from 8.10 on Friday morning.

Ten cargoes carrying about 881 mcm are due at northwest European terminals between today and 23 September, and two of them are British: 97 mcm at Isle of Grain from Norway today and 88 mcm at Milford Haven from the United States tomorrow. Friday’s schedule had nothing bound for Britain at all. Three of the ten come from the United States, two from Russia, two from Algeria, one from Trinidad and Tobago, one from Norway and one has no origin listed.

What This Means for Your Business

For fixed-price buyers the reference points are Winter-26 at 199.07 p/therm and £158.95/MWh, about 6.79 p/kWh for gas and 15.9 p/kWh for power at wholesale, before network costs, levies and supplier margin.

A three-session slide was undone in a single day. Anyone who read last week’s falls as the start of a trend and waited for a better entry has watched Winter-26 gas take back 6.43p of the 14.86p it gave up. That is the case for splitting a purchase across several dates rather than backing one: the tranche bought into the dip is now in the money and the rest of the volume is still open.

The supply picture argues against assuming Friday was a one-off. Storage is twelve points behind last year, Troll and Sleipner are both curtailed, Norwegian deliveries into Britain halved over the weekend, and wind sits below its seasonal norm on every day of the coming week. Two British LNG cargoes and a mild week are the offset, and they are the smaller half of that balance.

The spread between the two winters widened again, to 70.03p on gas from 66.88p and to £51.95 on power from £50.11. A longer deal still buys you out of the expensive season, so when you are weighing what to pay for gas this winter it is worth pricing 24 months alongside 12.

If you want to know what these movements mean for your own contract dates and consumption profile, speak to one of our energy consultants today.

Previous report: UK Energy Market Report, 18 September 2026