Energy Market Report - 16 September 2026
Energy markets took a step back on Tuesday as traders trimmed the geopolitical risk premium that has accumulated since the attack on Saudi Arabia's main crude export pipeline, with improved Norwegian gas supply and softer demand forecasts allowing both gas and power curves to retreat. The relief was partial rather than convincing, with crude still more than 10 per cent higher on the week and European storage levels leaving little margin for error into winter.
Natural Gas
Gas prices fell across the curve because supply improved and the weather risk thinned, not because the underlying picture changed. Norwegian Continental Shelf flows rose around 2 per cent to 300 mcm/day on Tuesday, with UK deliveries up roughly 9 per cent at 48.5 mcm/day, and TTF day-ahead settled €3.03 lower at €81.18/MWh while NBP day-ahead fell 9.85p to 197.50 p/therm and October eased to 198.41 p/therm. Winter 26 shed 5.98p to 201.53 p/therm, having climbed more than 20 per cent since the start of September. Overnight the supply picture reversed, with an outage at Nyhamna removing 38.8 mcm/day of capacity from today and unplanned maintenance at Troll cutting a further 25 mcm/day, dropping Norwegian arrivals into the UK to around 33 mcm/day. LNG sendout is steady at roughly 10 mcm/day and the arrivals schedule into Northwest Europe is reasonably full, but the constraint is inventory rather than flow: EU storage stands at 68.49 per cent with the UK at just 31.31 per cent, and current projections point to a peak near 75 per cent in early November and a possible winter exit around 25 per cent, the weakest since 2018. Qatari LNG exports are reported as restricted under force majeure with Hormuz traffic close to a standstill, which keeps a floor under the whole complex.
Electricity
UK power split between a falling curve and a firming prompt. Tuesday was an exceptionally strong renewables day, with wind, solar, biomass and hydro supplying 63.6 per cent of the GB mix and CCGT running at an average of just 4.7 GW, and that combined with the gas sell-off to push October baseload down £5.48 to £152.52/MWh, Q4 26 down £5.52 to £159.53/MWh and Winter 26 down £5.17 to £161.05/MWh. Day-ahead moved the other way, settling £4.61 higher at £171.17/MWh with peak at £175.84/MWh, as wind was forecast to fall almost 30 per cent on Wednesday to a little over 8 GW. Generation margins remain constrained by nuclear outages, with Hartlepool unit 2 out until early October and Heysham 2 unit 8 on an extended planned outage, and continental support is limited by French hydro reserves at 55.4 per cent, the lowest for mid-September since at least 1997, although the end of Tuesday's French strike returned 7.3 GW of nuclear and 6.3 GW of hydro to the grid. Relief is coming from the weather: Atlantic low-pressure systems from Thursday should more than double UK wind to 16.3 GW and lift German output above 30 GW by Sunday.
Other Commodities
Crude remains the driver of the wider complex, with Brent M+1 settling $3.07 higher at $108.75/bbl and WTI at $105.83/bbl, taking weekly gains to 11.06 per cent and 13.76 per cent respectively, after the shutdown of the Saudi East-West pipeline suspended Yanbu loadings and forced the cancellation of September cargoes to European refiners. Prices have eased back below $108/bbl this morning on reports of replacement barrels being offered via Oman and a surprise 7.14 million barrel build in US crude stocks, while Libya's national oil company has warned it may declare force majeure after security guards shut two fields and a pumping station. Coal was effectively flat, with API2 ARA Cal 27 up $0.32 at $135.73/tonne, keeping clean dark spreads comfortably ahead of clean sparks in the continental merit order. Carbon fell with the energy complex, EUA Dec 26 dropping €2.38 to €85.61/tonne and UK ETS Dec 26 falling £1.91 to £60.65/tonne, equivalent to €70.87 and a discount of roughly €14.74/tonne to the EU benchmark. In LNG, JKM M+1 settled at $27.77/MMBtu, down 3.9 per cent on subdued Northeast Asian demand, with Henry Hub spot at $2.97/MMBtu, and sterling was quiet at 1.3474 against the dollar and 1.1685 against the euro.