Weekly Energy Market Report - Week 30

Gas and power repriced the coming winter as a Ukrainian infrastructure strike and Hormuz shipping risk pushed NBP day-ahead up 12.5% on the week.

The week of 13 July was the week the geopolitical risk premium stopped being a prompt story and moved into the curve. NBP day-ahead finished at 139.50 p/therm on Friday, 12.5% up on Monday’s close, and Winter-26 gained 11.2% alongside it.

Unlike the previous week, where a mid-week spike faded by Friday, this one built through every session and then accelerated into the close. The move was driven by a Russian drone strike on Ukrainian gas infrastructure, continued disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and a European storage position that keeps falling further behind last year.

UK supply was not the problem at any point. Norwegian flows, UKCS output and LNG arrivals all held up. The market simply decided that next winter is riskier than it thought seven days earlier.

Gas Market Review

Monday set the base at 124.00 p/therm on the day-ahead. By Tuesday it was 129.00 p/therm, with Dutch TTF day-ahead settling near €53/MWh, around 21% higher than at the start of the month, as Strait of Hormuz concerns, hot weather and weak storage injections pushed spot and prompt to multi-month highs.

Midweek was quieter. The day-ahead consolidated around 131.80 p/therm by Thursday’s close, and it looked briefly as though the market had found a level.

Friday broke it. The day-ahead settled at 139.50 p/therm, up 7.70 or 5.8% in a single session, and the move ran the whole length of the curve rather than stopping at the front. Aug-26 closed at 138.75 p/therm, up 6.77 on the day, Q4-26 at 141.71 p/therm and Winter-26 at 139.26 p/therm. A Russian drone strike on Ukrainian gas infrastructure was the trigger, landing on a market already carrying a Middle East premium.

Across the week as a whole, the shape is the interesting part. Day-ahead rose 12.5% and Winter-26 11.2%, but Summer-27 gained only 6.3%, Winter-27 3.9% and Summer-28 2.7%. The front repriced roughly four times as hard as the back.

Supply gave the bears nothing to work with and the bulls very little either. Norwegian exports held at 329.4 mcm/day on Friday despite unplanned maintenance at Asgard trimming 5.3 mcm/day, with total curtailments reaching 39.1 mcm/day before easing over the weekend. Continental hubs stayed at a premium throughout, with TTF closing the week assessed at 143.92 p/therm against the NBP at 139.50 p/therm, which kept IUK and BBL exporting a combined 51 mcm/day out of Britain.

Electricity Market Review

Power followed gas, with one caveat worth reading carefully. The Friday baseload day-ahead settled at £99.03/MWh, which looks like a collapse but is simply a weekend delivery contract. The working-week prompt ran between £113/MWh and £125/MWh, and Monday 20 July settled back at £127.40/MWh once weekday demand returned.

The forwards are the honest measure and they moved hard. Aug-26 baseload finished the week at £114.72/MWh, up 6.2%, Sep-26 at £115.60/MWh, up 7.1%, and Oct-26 at £114.74/MWh, up 10.1%, the largest gain on the curve. Q4-26 closed at £120.38/MWh and Winter-26 at £118.61/MWh, both around 9% higher on the week. Winter-26 peak settled at £134.54/MWh.

The back of the curve was again much steadier. Summer-27 baseload added 4.0% to £83.35/MWh, Winter-27 2.3% to £83.55/MWh and Winter-28 just 0.4% to £70.54/MWh.

The generation background did the rest. UK nuclear availability worsened through the week rather than improving, with Hartlepool 2 and Heysham 2 unit 7 both taking unplanned derates, on top of both Sizewell B units, Hartlepool 1 and Heysham 1 unit 2 already fully offline. In France, restrictions at Golfech-2 and Chooz-2 were extended, limiting the scope for cheap interconnector imports. Wind ran below seasonal norms for most of the week, which left the system leaning on CCGT precisely as gas was repricing.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent had a strong week, settling at $88.10 a barrel on Friday against $83.30 on Monday, a gain of 5.8% and its firmest level since mid-June. Most of it came on Friday, when the contract added $3.87 or 4.6% in a single session as reports of tanker strikes in the Strait of Hormuz circulated. Coal API2 for Cal-27 tracked it up 2.5% to $121.53 a tonne.

LNG was the standout. Asian JKM rose 12.7% on the week to $20.98/MMBtu, matching the pace of the European move almost exactly. That matters for UK buyers, because it means Asia is still bidding hard enough to keep flexible cargoes from being diverted into Europe. There was no relief valve.

Carbon went the other way. EUA allowances eased 1.2% on the week to €79.11 a tonne, weighed down on Friday by a European Commission proposal to overhaul the EU Emissions Trading System and give businesses longer to cut emissions than previously planned. The UK ETS, which is not covered by the proposal, firmed 2.8% to £58.70. Sterling was slightly firmer against both the euro at 1.1751 and the dollar at 1.3453 over the week as a whole.

Storage and Supply Outlook

European storage is the fundamental sitting underneath everything above. EU inventories stood at roughly 53.0% full on 16 July, around 10.8 percentage points below the same point last year, and injection rates continued to run behind seasonal norms all week. The deficit has not narrowed at any point this month.

That arithmetic is what makes the winter contracts sensitive. Europe has until 1 November to refill, the pace is too slow, and every week the gap persists it takes a little more of the buffer out of the winter position. That is why Friday’s buying concentrated in Q4-26 and Winter-26 rather than the prompt.

UK site storage finished the week offering no cushion at all. Rough and Humbly Grove were both empty, Aldbrough sat at 21%, Hornsea at 23%, Hill Top at 28%, Holehouse Farm at 35%, Stublach at 36% and Holford at 43%. South Hook at 79% and Isle of Grain at 62% look better on paper, but they are LNG working stock waiting to be regasified, not seasonal reserve.

LNG arrivals into northwest Europe stayed reasonable across the week, with US cargoes the dominant source and a steady schedule into Gate, Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbuttel. UK sendout, however, remained subdued at around 8 to 11 mcm/day, and the next South Hook delivery is not scheduled until 4 August.

The Week Ahead, Procurement Outlook

Monday 20 July confirmed the direction rather than reversing it. NBP day-ahead settled at 141.00 p/therm and Winter-26 at 141.86 p/therm, both higher again, and Brent added a further 1.3% to $89.22 a barrel. Carbon reversed sharply, with EUAs jumping 5.3% to €83.27 a tonne as the market decided the Commission’s ETS proposal does not change the underlying tightening path.

There is one new factor and it points down. Reports of possible ceasefire discussions between the United States and Iran have started circulating, and if they progress they would take a meaningful premium out of the front of the curve very quickly. Ongoing military activity in the region continues to limit how far prices can fall in the meantime, so this is genuinely two-way risk for the first time in a fortnight.

For buyers, the practical read is this. Winter-26 gas has moved from around 125 p/therm to nearly 142 p/therm in six trading sessions, and Winter-26 baseload from £109/MWh to £122/MWh. If you have a 1 October or 1 January start still fully open, that exposure has become materially more expensive in a very short space of time, and hoping it comes back has cost money every week this month.

Equally, fixing an entire book at the top of a geopolitical spike is how buyers get caught the other way. The sensible middle ground is a staged approach with tranches and trigger levels agreed in advance, so that a ceasefire headline becomes an opportunity rather than a regret.

And if your renewal date allows you to start beyond next winter, the curve is offering a real discount. Summer-27 gas closed the week at 94.59 p/therm against a front at 139.50, and Summer-27 baseload at £83.35/MWh against Winter-26 at £118.61/MWh. That gap widened again this week rather than closing. To review your renewal dates against this curve and agree an approach that fits your risk profile, speak to one of our energy consultants today.

Previous report: Weekly Energy Market Report, Week of 6 July 2026

For the following week’s energy market analysis, read our Weekly Energy Market Report, Week of 27 July 2026.