Energy Market Report - 21 September 2026
Middle East tensions escalated over the weekend, with reported attacks reaching the Saudi capital and continued pressure on shipping through the Gulf, yet crude has eased rather than rallied as physical flows hold up. European gas and power both settled sharply higher on Friday on storage and supply concerns, and have softened modestly in thin trading this morning.
Natural Gas
Prices rose across the board on Friday despite a milder weekend outlook, which points to structural rather than weather-driven support. UK NBP day-ahead settled at 196.70 p/therm, up 5.10 p/therm, with the October contract adding 7.43 p/therm to 198.16 p/therm and Winter 26 settling at 199.07 p/therm. Dutch TTF day-ahead was assessed at €79.27/MWh, up around 3 per cent, with German prices the sharpest movers on the continent. The persistent concern is inventory: EU storage stood at 69.62 per cent on 20 September, with Germany at 56.55 per cent and the UK at only 31.35 per cent, all below seasonal norms with the injection window nearly closed. Norwegian exit nominations held at 271.7 mcm/day this morning, though a compressor failure at Troll and unplanned maintenance at Sleipner are curtailing a further 10.5 mcm/day. UK LNG sendout is expected at 13 mcm/day with two cargoes due at the Isle of Grain, and the wider North West European arrivals schedule remains well supplied. Prices have eased to around 191 to 193 p/therm this morning.
Electricity
Power followed gas higher on the curve while the prompt swung violently in the opposite direction. UK day-ahead baseload settled at just £28.00/MWh on Friday, down almost £76/MWh, as strong weekend renewables output met light demand; Sunday afternoon system prices fell as low as minus £50/MWh before ramping to £233/MWh in the evening peak. The live day-ahead has since rebounded to around £208/MWh as wind faded and gas-for-power demand rose 16 mcm/day run-on-run. Forward contracts firmed more steadily, with October baseload settling at £153.88/MWh and Winter 26 at £158.95/MWh. Nuclear availability is a constraint, with unplanned outages at Heysham 1 and Hartlepool alongside a heavy planned maintenance programme. The continental picture is tighter still: German October settled €9/MWh higher at €173.18/MWh, its second-highest print on record, and French October rose €9.20/MWh to €155.00/MWh after EDF warned it may curtail the 3 GW Civaux plant from 1 October because of low river levels.
Other Commodities
Crude eased in spite of the geopolitical backdrop, with Brent M+1 settling at $103.87/bbl and WTI at $100.30/bbl on Friday, and Brent slipping further to around $101.81/bbl this morning as regional flows continue largely uninterrupted. Saudi Arabia is reported to be cutting some European refineries from October crude allocations. Coal softened, with API2 ARA CIF Cal-27 down $1.64 to $133.44/tonne. Carbon markets diverged: EU allowances for December 2026 settled at €86.89/tonne, up €0.86 and close to their highest level of the year on options expiry, while UK ETS December 2026 slipped £0.40 to £59.36/tonne, leaving the UK allowance at a discount of roughly €17.77/tonne and materially underperforming the EU scheme over the week. In global LNG, JKM for October settled at $27.51/MMBtu and Henry Hub spot at $2.97/MMBtu, keeping the Atlantic arbitrage open. Sterling was little changed at 1.3393 against the dollar and 1.1644 against the euro, and was not a factor in import costs.