Energy Market Report - 19 August 2026
A hardening geopolitical backdrop and a heavy Norwegian maintenance schedule pushed European gas and power to fresh multi-year highs on Tuesday, with UK gas settling at its strongest front-season level since April 2023. Crude held above $91/bbl, carbon firmed, and forward power across north-west Europe rose in sympathy.
Natural Gas
Gas markets extended their advance because the supply outlook for the coming months tightened, not because today's system is short. NBP day-ahead settled at 157.25 p/therm and TTF day-ahead closed near €64.0/MWh, the highest settlement since January 2023, while Winter 26 reached 157.79 p/therm. Norwegian planned maintenance is scheduled to ramp from around 25 mcm/day of offline capacity in late August to 70-75 mcm/day in September, and Gassco nominations already eased 0.90 per cent to 321 mcm/day. European LNG imports fell sharply on the day to around 300 mcm/day, and storage across the Continent remains lagging at 61.4 per cent full, with Germany at 50.1 per cent and the Netherlands at 42.1 per cent. Geopolitics is a live factor rather than background noise: no US-Iran negotiations are scheduled, a naval blockade remains in force, and reports of vessels being targeted in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are lengthening voyages into Europe. The British system itself opened around 12 mcm/day long this morning, with Langeled up 9.10 mcm/day to 59.90, UKCS production at 88.30 mcm/day and LNG sendout unchanged at 8 mcm/day.
Electricity
Power followed gas higher along the curve while the prompt showed early signs of turning. UK day-ahead baseload settled £4.06 higher at £143.00/MWh, with peak below baseload at £136.00/MWh because the day's most expensive half-hours fell in the evening ramp after 19:00, outside the peak block. Wind averaged 9.3 GW on Tuesday, some 29.5 per cent of the stack, but solar output was more than half below the same day last week, leaving CCGT at 10.4 GW to carry the evening. Further out, Q4 26 baseload gained £2.56 to £131.68/MWh and Winter 26 rose £2.61 to £129.92/MWh, with forward peak contracts moving faster still. Nuclear supply is the recurring constraint: Hartlepool 2 and Heysham 1-1 are offline in Britain with Torness 1 due to follow, while French unavailability sits at 19.4 GW into late August and the Chooz outage has been extended into September. Spanish cooling issues have taken Asco and Vandellos out, and low Danube water has stopped Romania's Cernavoda, leaving the interconnected Continental market with less spare firm capacity than the season would normally suggest.
Other Commodities
Crude held its ground rather than pushing on, with Brent M+1 at $91.02/bbl and WTI at $84.94/bbl, up 2.4 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively on the week. The bid remains driven by transit risk through Hormuz and the Red Sea rather than by any change in physical balances. Coal edged higher, with API2 ARA Cal 27 up $0.57 to $125.63/tonne. Carbon added meaningfully to generation costs, with EUA Dec 26 up €0.73 to €82.31/tonne and the curve rising through Dec 27 at €85.24 and Dec 28 at €88.35, while UK ETS Dec 26 gained £0.22 to £59.29/tonne, leaving UK allowances at roughly a €13/tonne discount to their European equivalent. In global LNG, JKM M+1 rose to $21.89/MMBtu against North West European September cargoes at $20.14/MMBtu, an Asian premium wide enough to keep competing for Atlantic supply, while Henry Hub spot at $2.82/MMBtu underlines how much of the delivered European price is freight and scarcity rather than molecule cost. Sterling was marginally softer at 1.1684 against the euro and 1.3529 against the dollar.