Hormuz reopening talk strips the risk premium out of the whole curve, with Brent down almost 12% and every NBP contract lower, in the opening sessions of August.

Three sessions into the week and the entire energy complex has repriced downwards. Brent has fallen almost 12% from Friday’s close, every NBP contract out to Winter-27 settled lower on Tuesday, and UK day-ahead power has dropped nearly 18%.

One headline did most of the damage. Reports that an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be reached shortly pulled the geopolitical premium out of oil and gas at the same time.

This report covers Monday 3 to Wednesday 5 August. Settlement figures run to Tuesday 4 August, the most recent close available, with Wednesday morning’s indicative levels included where they add to the picture. Thursday and Friday will be covered in next Monday’s report.

Gas Market Review

NBP Day-Ahead closed Friday 31 July at 142.00 p/therm. By Tuesday’s settlement it was 135.25p, a fall of 6.75p or 4.8%.

The curve fell further than the prompt, which is the reverse of last week. Sep-26, the front month, lost 7.50p to 136.78p, a drop of 5.2%.

Q4-26 shed 6.81p to 140.09p, Winter-26 fell 6.21p to 137.10p, and Summer-27 came off 3.96p to 89.43p.

That pattern matters more than the size of the move. Last week the prompt sold off while Winter-26 held firm, which told you the softness was weather. This week the winter contract fell with everything else.

Monday and Tuesday had different causes. Monday was a supply story, with LNG deliveries into Europe nominated at roughly 270 mcm/day, more than double the previous day, and EU storage taking a net injection of around 3.0 TWh on the 1 August gas day.

Tuesday was politics. Dutch TTF Day-Ahead rallied to €60.47/MWh intraday before the Hormuz reports turned it round, closing at €55.47/MWh, down roughly 3.7%.

Weather reinforced it. North West European temperatures are forecast to drop from around 4.6°C above the five-year average to slightly below normal by 7 August, cutting cooling demand and gas burn for power.

Norwegian supply gave the market no help at all. GASSCO total exit nominations fell from 329.2 mcm/day on Friday to 318.8 mcm/day on Tuesday, with Gullfaks maintenance running from 4 to 8 August, recovering only to 319.3 mcm/day on Wednesday morning.

Langeled deliveries to Britain dropped from 52.8 mcm/day on Monday to 44.10 mcm/day by Wednesday, and UKCS production fell to 69.30 mcm/day.

Britain is still exporting into the continental premium. NBP at 135.25p sits below TTF at 139.05p, THE at 140.24p and Italian PSV at 151.09p, and the UK sent 34.70 mcm/day to Belgium through IUK and 15.92 mcm/day to the Netherlands through BBL.

The far end of the curve refused to follow the rest down. Summer-28 settled 0.36p higher on Tuesday and Winter-28 gained 0.45p, and both were bid again on Wednesday morning.

The card below summarises where NBP contracts stand against Friday’s close.

Electricity Market Review

UK Day-Ahead baseload has been the most violent number on the board. It settled at 108.19 £/MWh on Friday, jumped to 128.50 £/MWh on Monday, then collapsed to 88.84 £/MWh on Tuesday.

Measured Friday close to Tuesday close, that is a fall of 19.35 £/MWh, or 17.9%.

Peak went considerably further. It settled at 49.61 £/MWh on Tuesday, down 31.66 £/MWh from Friday, and finished 39.23 £/MWh below baseload.

Peak trading that far under baseload only happens when midday renewable output swamps the daytime demand block.

Forward power fell as well, but nothing like as hard. Sep-26 baseload settled at 116.00 £/MWh on Tuesday, Q4-26 at 118.82 £/MWh and Winter-26 at 117.31 £/MWh, each roughly 4 to 5 £/MWh below Friday’s close.

Balancing stayed volatile throughout. Maximum System Buy Price hit 198.00 £/MWh on Monday, 167.42 £/MWh on Tuesday and 164.50 £/MWh on Wednesday.

The nuclear position is the part that has not improved. Hartlepool 2 comes off on 7 August for 16 days, taking 620 MW out, with Heysham 1 following on 17 August and Torness 1 on 21 August.

That is close to 1.9 GW of baseload cover leaving the stack in succession, while wind output is forecast to fall from roughly 47% load factor on Wednesday to 31% on Thursday.

So anyone locking in power for the winter ahead is looking at a market where the forward price has fallen while the physical cover has got thinner. Those two things do not usually move together, and it is worth understanding which one your price is actually following.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent was the week’s big mover. It settled at 90.12 $/barrel on Friday, 83.77 $/barrel on Monday and 79.36 $/barrel on Tuesday, a three-week low and a fall of 10.76 $/barrel or 11.9%.

The trigger was the same Hormuz story that hit gas, reinforced by President Trump describing all-day negotiations with Iran on Tuesday as very good discussions.

Carbon was the one corner of the complex that did not fall. EUA Dec-26 added 0.08 €/tonne to €81.34 and UK ETS Dec-26 gained 0.24 £/tonne to £59.33, both marginally above Friday’s close.

Coal went with energy rather than carbon, API2 Cal-27 losing 4.77 $/tonne to $120.14.

Commodity	Price (Tue close)	Change (week to date)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$79.36/barrel	-11.9%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€81.34/tonne	+0.1%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£59.33/tonne	+0.4%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$120.14/tonne	-3.8%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$19.89/MMBtu	-7.3%
TTF Gas (day-ahead)	€55.47/MWh	-4.9%

Tuesday 4 August 2026 settlement. Change measured against Friday 31 July close.

Storage and Supply Outlook

EU gas storage reached 57.66% full on 4 August, up from 57.11% at the end of the 2 August gas day. It remains roughly 12 percentage points behind the same point last year, and that gap has widened over the past week rather than closed.

European LNG imports finished July at around 8.8 bcm, roughly 19% below June and 29% below July 2025.

The arrival schedule shows where the cargoes are going. Every loaded delivery into North West Europe between 5 and 12 August is coming from the United States, into Wilhelmshaven, Gate, Eemshaven, Fos and Brunsbuttel.

Not one is booked into a UK terminal. Total UK sendout has been static at 8 mcm/day all week, 5.00 from South Hook and 3.20 from Isle of Grain.

UK site storage is unchanged in character. South Hook sits at 81% and Stublach at 74%, but Hornsea is only 35% full, and both Rough and Humbly Grove remain at zero.

Britain therefore goes into this winter leaning on Norwegian pipeline flows and prompt cargoes, and Norwegian flows are lower this week than last.

The Week Ahead, Procurement Outlook

The gap between price and fundamentals is the thing to take from these three sessions.

Prices fell across the board because a risk premium came out, not because supply improved. Norwegian flows are lower than they were on Friday, UKCS production is lower, EU storage is further behind last year, and 620 MW of nuclear comes off on Friday.

None of that changed this week. Only the assumption about Hormuz did.

That assumption rests on reports of an agreement that has not been signed. The same premium came out of oil in a single session on 27 July and went straight back in when the position hardened again.

For buyers this reads as a window rather than a trend. Winter-26 gas at 137.10p is 6.21p cheaper than Friday and Winter-26 power at 117.31 £/MWh is roughly 4.45 £/MWh cheaper, and both of those prices exist because of a headline rather than a barrel or a therm.

The step down from Winter-26 to Summer-27 is still close to 48p per therm. A single fixed price across two or three years therefore still averages one expensive winter into two much cheaper ones.

Buying in stages rather than all at once remains the cleaner answer where volume allows it, because it lets you take the cheap back seasons without paying up for the winter you cannot avoid.

Three things are worth watching through Thursday and Friday. Whether the Hormuz reports firm up into anything concrete, whether Gullfaks returns on 8 August as scheduled, and how the market absorbs Hartlepool 2 going offline on the 7th.

For a view tailored to your consumption profile and renewal window, speak to one of our energy consultants today.

Previous report: Weekly Energy Market Report, Week 31

For the following week’s energy market analysis, read our Weekly Energy Market Report, Week 33.