UK Energy Market Report - 22 September 2026

Every NBP gas contract settles lower and the whole power curve follows, while day-ahead baseload jumps from £28.00 to £198.43/MWh as the wind drops away

Gas Market

The selling was concentrated in exactly the contracts that were bought on Friday. Oct-26 fell 16.56p, or 8.36%, to 181.60p, Q4-26 15.87p to 184.60p, Nov-26 15.74p to 185.29p and Dec-26 15.33p to 186.92p.

Winter-26 lost 15.35p to 183.72p and Q1-27 14.80p to 182.83p.

The far curve barely moved. Summer-27 fell 3.86p to 130.63p, Winter-27 2.44p to 126.60p, Summer-28 0.69p to 81.91p and Winter-28 0.50p to 88.85p.

That split matters more than the headline number. Oct-26 now sits 9.13p below its close on Thursday 17 September, before Friday’s rally, and Winter-26 8.92p below. Summer-27 and Winter-27 are both fractionally above their Thursday closes. Two violent sessions have left the coming winter cheaper than it started and the back of the curve exactly where it was.

Britain is still the cheapest of the seven European hubs and the margin has not moved. At 182.60p, NBP sits 3.30p under the Dutch TTF at 185.90p, against 3.35p on Friday. Italy’s PSV is dearest at 193.58p, 10.98p above NBP, with Spain’s PVB at 189.52p, Austria’s VTP at 187.61p, Germany’s THE at 186.53p and France’s PEG at 185.66p.

Yesterday’s morning marks were wrong on every contract and wrong the same way. Day-ahead was indicated at 191.25p and settled 8.65p lower, Oct-26 at 190.50p and settled 8.90p lower, Winter-26 at 192.37p and settled 8.65p lower, and Summer-27 at 137.00p and settled 6.37p lower. Friday’s marks had missed in both directions on the same page, so treat this as one morning rather than a bias worth trading.

At 09:40 this morning the curve is marked back up, modestly. Day-ahead is indicated at 184.99p, 2.39p above settlement, with Oct-26 at 183.08p and Winter-26 at 184.96p, both a little over a penny higher. Winter-27 is marked at 135.00p and Summer-28 at 91.24p, 8.40p and 9.33p above their closes, which is less a price than the absence of one: those contracts barely trade.

Norway is the supply story and it has two halves. Total exit nominations were 263.9 mcm/day this morning against 274 at the close, with the Troll compressor failure unresolved and several planned maintenance events starting today. Deliveries into Britain went the other way. At the 07:00 read Langeled is back to 14.00 mcm/day from nothing yesterday morning and Vesterled and Flags sit at 6.00 from 4.00, so Norwegian supply into the UK has gone from 4.00 mcm/day to 20.00 in twenty-four hours.

Against yesterday’s 07:00 figures demand is 18.12 higher at 143.42 mcm/day and UKCS production 4.30 lower at 87.90, with the system opening around 20 mcm/day long. Exports run at 5.23 mcm/day to the Netherlands through BBL and 16.30 to Belgium through IUK. Demand for the day is forecast near 147 mcm.

Electricity Market

Peak settled above baseload again, at £202.34 against £198.43, ending three sessions in which it traded below. That gap had been closing all week, at £33.36, £18.45 and £15.04, and it has now turned over. Peak rose £189.38 from £12.96, more than fifteen times its Friday level.

The curve fell with gas and fell hard. Oct-26 baseload lost £11.37, or 7.39%, to £142.51, Nov-26 £11.36 to £150.81, Q4-26 £11.20 to £147.31 and Winter-26 £10.82 to £148.13. Summer-27 gave up £3.65 to £102.10 and Winter-27 £1.93 to £105.07. On the peak side Oct-26 fell £11.74 to £163.01 and Winter-26 £11.06 to £170.75.

Yesterday’s marks overshot across the board. This report carried a day-ahead baseload offer of £208.00 and a peak offer of £208.34; they settled £9.57 and £6.00 lower. Winter-26 baseload was marked at £161.90 and settled £13.77 under it, and Oct-26 at £152.00 against a £142.51 close. Every gas and power indication in that report finished above the settlement, which is the first time in this run they have all missed the same way.

At 09:40 this morning day-ahead baseload is offered at £162.00, £36.43 below yesterday’s settlement, as wind starts to recover. The forwards are marked higher, Oct-26 at £145.00, Nov-26 at £154.50 and Winter-26 at £151.09, between £2.49 and £3.69 above their closes.

The imbalance market landed almost exactly at the bottom and close at the top. Yesterday’s part-day row published here read £238.00 at 02:54 and £114.43 at 03:49. Monday settled at £239.00, but the maximum printed at 12:48, nearly ten hours after that part-day stamp, and the minimum came in at exactly £114.43, re-stamped 03:44.

That £114.43 floor is the real signal in the imbalance data. Sunday’s minimum was minus £50.00 and Saturday’s minus £14.30; Monday never went below £114.43 at any point in the day. Today’s part-day row reads £190.00 at 04:48 and £123.33 at 01:18, and neither figure is settled.

Wind is the constraint today and the relief later in the week. Combined wind and solar generation is forecast near 6,900 MWh today, the low point of the window, recovering to about 9,200 tomorrow, easing to 8,100 on the 24th, then climbing to roughly 11,500 on the 27th and 13,900 on the 29th. The seasonal norm across that window is 10,350 to 10,450, so output is below par until the 27th. Yesterday’s forecast had the 23rd near 6,750 and it has been revised up by about a third.

Temperatures are forecast above the seasonal mean on every day to 29 September, near 16.6°C today and 16.4°C tomorrow against a mean close to 13.5°C, which holds heating demand down while the wind is short. Nuclear outages are unchanged at 2,725 MW across five units, with Torness 1 and Heysham 1 reactor 1 due back around 25 September and Hartlepool 2 at the end of the month.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent settled at $100.34/barrel on 21 September, down $3.53 or 3.40%, a fourth consecutive fall and the steepest of the month. It now sits $8.41 below the month’s high close of $108.75 on 15 September and within 35 cents of $100. Traders are watching the United Nations General Assembly in New York for signs of talks between the United States, Israel and Iran, with a Trump and Xi meeting expected later in the week.

The LNG benchmarks all fell, and Britain fell furthest. NBP spot lost $1.94 to $24.40/MMBtu against $1.80 on TTF at $24.90 and $1.52 on JKM at $25.99, so Asia’s premium over Britain widened to $1.59 from $1.17. Henry Hub eased to $2.93.

Both carbon markets fell and the UK fell harder. EUA Dec-26 lost €0.30 to €86.59 while UK ETS Dec-26 dropped £1.36 to £58.00. At 1.1658 the UK allowance is worth about €67.62, a €18.97 discount to the European price, widened from €17.77 on Friday.

Sterling firmed 0.0014 to 1.1658 against the euro and eased 0.0030 to 1.3363 against the dollar.

Storage and Supply Outlook

British storage gained two points over the session, to 54% on the country map, which leaves it level with the lower of the two Benelux labels and still the emptiest reading shown. France stands at 79%, Italy at 85%, Spain at 73% and Germany at 56%, with the second Benelux label at 59%.

Individual sites moved little. Hill Top and Stublach each added two points, to 44% and 84%, and Aldbrough one to 61%. South Hook slipped a point to 68% as it sent gas out. Dragon (33%), Holehouse Farm (70%), HolFord (75%), Hornsea (65%) and Isle of Grain (25%) were unchanged, Rough remains empty and Humbly Grove sits at 1%.

UK LNG sendout was 16.10 mcm/day at the 07:00 read, Isle of Grain 9.60 and South Hook 6.50, up from 13.30 yesterday morning, and is expected to reach about 17 mcm by the end of the day.

Ten cargoes carrying about 900 mcm are due at northwest European terminals between today and 26 September, and two of them are British: 106 mcm at Milford Haven from the United States tomorrow and 80 mcm at Isle of Grain from Algeria on the 25th. Five of the ten come from the United States, three from Algeria and two from Russia.

What This Means for Your Business

For fixed-price buyers the reference points are Winter-26 at 183.72 p/therm and £148.13/MWh, about 6.27 p/kWh for gas and 14.8 p/kWh for power at wholesale, before network costs, levies and supplier margin.

Friday’s rally lasted exactly one session. Winter-26 gas gave back the whole 6.43p it gained and another 8.92p on top, so anyone who chased that move is now holding a level 8.92p dearer than the one available before it started. Nobody called the direction of either session, which is the case for buying in tranches across several dates rather than backing a single morning.

The two winters have converged sharply. The gap between Winter-26 and Winter-27 narrowed to 57.12p on gas from 70.03p, and to £43.06 on power from £51.95. Twenty-four-month pricing is a smaller discount against twelve than it was on Friday, but it is still a discount and still worth quoting alongside.

Day-ahead power is a reminder that a prompt price is weather, not a market view. Baseload has settled at £103.95, £28.00 and £198.43 in three consecutive sessions, a range of £170.43 with no change in the underlying fuel cost. Half-hourly sites on pass-through terms feel every penny of that, which is why the way your electricity contract treats the prompt can matter more than the headline unit rate.

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, 21 September 2026