Weekly Energy Market Report - Week 35

NBP gas added up to 7.52p a therm on Winter-26 and made a fresh multi-year high, day-ahead power fell 22 and rose 20 to finish where it started, and British storage went from the emptiest in Europe to 46% full.

This report covers 20 to 25 August, four settled sessions, and it picks up exactly where Week 34 stopped. Figures below measure the Wednesday 19 August close to the Tuesday 25 August close.

Two things happened at once. The gas curve rose three sessions in a row to a fresh multi-year high and then gave a quarter of it back, and British gas storage finally started filling.

Power went nowhere and took a very long route to get there.

Gas Market Review

NBP Day-Ahead settled at 161.40p on 25 August against 157.00p on 19 August, a gain of 4.40p or 2.8%.

The path matters more than the endpoints. The closes ran 161.25p, 164.00p, 166.15p and 161.40p, three consecutive rises to the highest print in more than three years and then a 4.75p fall on the final session.

The forwards did considerably better than the prompt. Sep-26 added 6.72p to 163.11p, Q4-26 7.25p to 167.26p and Winter-26 7.52p to 165.35p, a gain of 4.8% and the largest on the near curve.

The far curve lagged for the first time this month. Winter-27 rose 3.37p to 103.13p and Summer-28 just 1.20p to 72.69p, against 4.8% on Winter-26, which steepened the backwardation after a period when the far end had been the fastest riser on the board.

The shape at the front changed three times in four sessions. On 20 August Sep-26 settled 0.02p below the day-ahead, by 21 August it was 1.42p below, on 24 August 2.05p above and on 25 August 1.71p above. A market that cannot decide whether to pay for gas now or gas next month is a market repricing risk, not weather.

Supply is the reason for the whole move. An unplanned outage at Karsto on 19 August cut Norwegian availability to 65 mcm/day, and Troll maintenance began on 24 August curtailing a further 24.4 mcm/day. Norwegian Continental Shelf exit nominations still recovered across the period, from 308.8 mcm/day to 338.5, which is what turned the final session.

Britain held the cheapest hub position for three of the four sessions, losing it to Spain on 20 August at 161.25p against PVB’s 160.29p and taking it straight back. The discount to TTF widened over the period, from 3.21p to 4.96p.

That discount is why the pipes point outwards. Britain exported between 46.54 and 50.48 mcm/day through IUK and BBL every session of the period, while holding the emptiest storage in Europe for most of it. Anyone weighing where a gas renewal sits against this curve is looking at a market that has added 7.52p to Winter-26 in four sessions on supply news alone.

The card below summarises where NBP contracts stood after the four settled sessions of this period.

Electricity Market Review

UK day-ahead baseload settled at 140.18 £/MWh on 25 August against 140.66 on 19 August, down 0.48 or 0.3%. That number hides everything that happened.

The closes ran 141.97, 119.99, 131.47 and 140.18. Day-ahead fell 21.98 on 21 August, a drop of 15.5%, then rose 11.48 and 8.71 on the next two sessions, a round trip of 42 £/MWh to finish 48 pence lower than it started.

The peak block was wilder still, falling 27.5% on 21 August to 98.21 £/MWh before recovering 12.1% to 134.91 on 25 August.

Over the weekend of 22 and 23 August the balancing market went negative on both days, a minimum System Sell Price of minus 16.31 £/MWh on the Saturday and minus 5.02 on the Sunday, both around midday, which is solar. The same two days carried maximum System Buy Prices of 199.50 and 204.80, and on 25 August the maximum reached 238.00, the highest of this run.

The forwards did none of that. Sep-26 baseload added 3.42 to 129.52 £/MWh, Q4-26 3.73 to 135.08 and Winter-26 4.76 to 135.23, a gain of 3.7%. Summer-27 rose 4.24 to 90.59, the largest percentage move on the board at 4.9%.

One structural change is worth carrying forward. Q1-27 baseload finished the period at 135.38, above Q4-26 at 135.08, having sat 1.59 below it on 24 August. Gas kept its Q4-over-Q1 shape at 3.86p a therm. The two fuels are no longer telling the same story about which quarter is tight, and that split appeared in a single session.

Nuclear is the reason the power forwards rose. Torness 1 came off on 21 August for 17 days, Hartlepool 2 returned and went straight back off on 25 August, and Heysham 2 reactor 7 followed on 26 August. Heysham 2 reactor 8 then takes 660 MW off on 4 September for 80 days, which runs to late November and straight through the quarter that has just repriced.

Wind was the swing factor at the prompt. Forecast output troughed near 6,100 MWh on 23 August, roughly 3,500 under the seasonal norm, recovered above 12,000 MWh by 25 August, and is forecast to trough again near 7,950 MWh on 28 August.

Oil, Carbon and Global Commodities

Brent M+1 finished at 88.58 $/barrel on 25 August against 91.62 on 19 August, down 3.04 or 3.3%, but it took a detour first.

It rose on 20 and 21 August to 94.39, a fifth consecutive gain and the highest close of that run, on the United States Treasury announcing what it called the toughest sanctions in history on Iran. Then it lost 2.22 and 3.59 on the following two sessions as the risk premium unwound, TotalEnergies reporting growing confidence the sanctions could be delivered without the region escalating.

Carbon went the other way and rose steadily on both sides of the Channel. EUA Dec-26 added 2.71 to €84.42 and UK ETS Dec-26 1.92 to £60.96, through 60 for the first time in this run.

At the 1.1689 sterling rate the European allowance is worth about £72.22, so the UK scheme is £11.26 a tonne cheaper than its European equivalent, against £11.71 on 20 August. Businesses carrying a UK ETS obligation are still buying into the cheaper scheme.

In LNG, JKM front month rose 1.23 to $23.32/MMBtu and TTF spot 1.12 to $22.68. Coal was the only contract on this table to end the period effectively unchanged, at $126.99/tonne after touching $129.52 on 24 August.

Commodity	Price (25 Aug close)	Change (20 to 25 Aug)
Brent Crude (M+1)	$88.58/barrel	-3.3%
Coal API2 (Cal-27)	$126.99/tonne	-0.1%
EUA Carbon (Dec-26)	€84.42/tonne	+3.3%
UK ETS (Dec-26)	£60.96/tonne	+3.3%
JKM LNG (front-month)	$23.32/MMBtu	+5.6%
TTF Gas (spot)	$22.68/MMBtu	+5.2%

Storage and Supply Outlook

This is the number that changed. British gas storage stood at 39% full on 21 August, the emptiest system in Europe and six points below the next one up. By 26 August it reads 46%.

Seven points across three readings is the first sustained injection run of the summer, and it arrived in the same week the curve rose. Stublach added 13 points to 75%, Aldbrough 12 to 43% and Holford 7 to 71%, with Holehouse Farm holding at 70% and Hornsea reaching 51%.

Rough and Humbly Grove remain at zero throughout, as they have all year.

At country level Britain is no longer bottom of the map. Italy sits at 80% full, Spain 73%, France 65%, Germany 50%, and the Benelux pair at 48% and 43%. EU storage moved from 61.61% on 19 August to roughly 62% now, still well below the same point last year.

LNG is the piece that has been missing. UK sendout sat at 8.10 mcm/day for six consecutive sessions with no British cargo on the arrivals schedule at all, and Britain exported gas to the continent every day of the period while holding the emptiest storage on the map.

That broke on 26 August. Milford Haven takes 96 mcm from the United States, the first UK arrival to appear on the schedule in over a week, and sendout moved for the first time in seven sessions to 9.00 mcm/day.

The Week Ahead, Procurement Outlook

Winter-26 gas at 165.35p is 59.43p a therm above Summer-27 at 105.92p. On a 1 GWh gas load the 7.52p Winter-26 added over these four sessions is worth roughly £2,566 a year, and the 28.03p it has added since 7 August is worth about £9,564.

For power, Winter-26 baseload at 135.23 £/MWh has added 4.76 over the period, roughly £4,760 a year on a 1 GWh electricity load.

The case for splitting a purchase rather than timing one is unusually clear this period. Gas rose three sessions and fell on the fourth, power fell 15.5% and then recovered it, and a business that fixed on any single day of the four would have paid a materially different price from one that fixed on any other. Buying in tranches against a defined risk position is the answer to a market moving 4p a therm a session on maintenance headlines.

Four things are worth watching. Cygnus maintenance starts on 31 August and IUK interconnector maintenance on 1 September, which cuts export capacity and should leave more gas in Britain. Troll capacity rises to 132.2 mcm/day on 3 September, lifting total Norwegian network capacity to 393 mcm/day.

Against that, Heysham 2 reactor 8 takes 660 MW off on 4 September for 80 days, with Torness 1 and Hartlepool 2 following on 6 and 7 September, so roughly 2,530 MW of nuclear leaves the system inside eight days. And European storage at 62% remains the single fact most likely to keep Winter-26 bid.

The next weekly will cover 26 August onwards once those sessions have settled.

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 34

For the following week’s energy market analysis, read our Weekly Energy Market Report, Week 36.

For more recent analysis, read our Weekly Energy Market Report, Week 37.