Energy Market Report - 01 May 2026
European energy markets retreated on Thursday as oil eased and traders trimmed the geopolitical risk premium built earlier in the week, with all major gas and power hubs settling lower day-on-day. The session was nonetheless framed by continued tensions between the US and Iran, intraday Brent volatility that briefly took the front contract to a four-year high, and the start of a heavy UK nuclear and Norwegian gas maintenance window.
Natural Gas
NBP and Continental gas softened across both prompt and curve as reports of Iran exploring options to reopen the Strait of Hormuz with regional partners eased some of the supply-side anxiety priced in over the previous fortnight. NBP day-ahead settled at 112.40 p/therm, with June-26 front-month at 112.88 p/therm and Win-26 at 115.30 p/therm, all down between 2 and 3 per cent. TTF day-ahead settled at €45.50 per MWh and Win-26 at €45.05 per MWh, with comparable declines at THE and PEG. UK demand fell to around 136 mcm/day on Thursday with the system broadly balanced into Friday's session, and an LNG cargo is scheduled to arrive at Isle of Grain today, with four further cargoes expected at Dutch terminals through next week. Norwegian flows tightened however, with total Gassco exit nominations at 282.4 mcm/day amid an extending maintenance schedule, the SAGE pipeline unavailable on 6 May removing 57 mcm/day, and Bacton Shell offline between 9 and 13 May. EU storage stood at around 32.5 per cent full at 367 TWh and net injections continued. With UK and North-Western European temperatures forecast to dip below seasonal averages after the bank holiday weekend, the demand impulse should pick back up early next week.
Electricity
UK power tracked gas lower across the forward curve, with Win-26 baseload settling at £97.34 per MWh, Cal-27 at £81.60 per MWh and Sum-27 at £75.31 per MWh, all down by between 1 and 1.5 per cent on the day. The notable outlier was the day-ahead baseload for delivery on 1 May, which jumped to £101.53 per MWh from £53.39 the previous session as wind generation is forecast to fall away sharply through the bank holiday weekend, gas-for-power demand is projected to rise by around 10 mcm/day, and a 27-day Torness planned outage begins on 1 May. On Thursday, wind had been the single largest contributor to the UK mix at 15.6 GW (46.5 per cent of generation) with CCGTs marginalised at just 1.9 GW. The forward picture is becoming materially more supportive into May, with Heysham 1-2, Heysham 2-8 and both Sizewell B units due to enter extended planned outages later in the month. Continental power tracked similar daily declines, with German Win-26 base at €111.22 per MWh and French Win-26 at €89.87 per MWh.
Other Commodities
Crude oil markets saw exceptional intraday volatility. The Brent June-26 contract surged in early trading to a four-year high just above $126.31 per barrel on unconfirmed reports that the US was considering renewed strikes against Iran, before closing and expiring at $114.01 per barrel, down $4.02 (3.4 per cent) on the day. WTI settled at $105.07 per barrel. The US Central Command was reported to have requested deployment of the 'Dark Eagle' hypersonic missile system to the region, a material escalation in capability. Brent firmed again into Friday morning trading following further hawkish comments from Iran's Supreme Leader, with prospects for a peace deal materially diminished. Coal ARA CIF Cal-27 eased to $121.92 per tonne, while EUA Dec-26 carbon firmed marginally to €73.79 per tonne and UK ETS Dec-26 to £49.51 per tonne. JKM for June delivery settled at $16.91 per MMBtu, broadly flat on the day. Sterling firmed against the dollar to 1.3600, with the EUR cross steady at 1.1544.