Energy markets extended a broad advance into Thursday’s close, with reports of renewed US and Israeli strike planning against Iran and the evacuation of non-emergency US staff from Saudi Arabia adding a fresh geopolitical premium to an already tightening physical picture. Gas and power both settled materially higher, Brent moved within reach of its high for the year, and the continental gas benchmark cleared €90/MWh for the first time since December 2022.
Natural Gas
Gas rose on a simultaneous deterioration across supply, imports and inventory rather than on any demand surprise. Unplanned maintenance at Asgard lifted Norwegian capacity curtailments to 67.5 mcm/day and pushed continental shelf nominations down to 304 mcm/day, the lowest of the month, with Vesterled flows at zero and a Troll outage removing a further 13 mcm/day; nominations have since recovered to 324.3 mcm/day. European LNG deliveries fell to 202.9 mcm/day, roughly 49 per cent below the month-to-date average, while UK send-out held steady at 10 mcm/day. Colder conditions also triggered Europe’s first net storage withdrawal of the winter, leaving stocks around 74.6 per cent full, some 8.2 percentage points below last year and roughly 15 percentage points below the five-year norm, with Germany at 61.09 per cent and the Netherlands at 64.93 per cent. Injections have effectively stalled, making the revised 80 per cent target for 1 November unreachable. UK NBP day-ahead settled 5.65 p/therm higher at 220.40 p/therm and November 2026 gained 6.76 p/therm to 221.98 p/therm, while TTF day-ahead rose about 1.9 per cent to €90.17/MWh. This morning the NBP front-month has reached 230.63 p/therm. The curve carries an unusual signal: Summer 2027 at 170.95 p/therm trades above the following Winter 2027 at 162.78 p/therm, a reversal of the normal seasonal order that reflects the cost of rebuilding depleted storage next summer.
Electricity
UK power tracked gas higher, with early-November contracts gaining fastest on forecasts for weaker wind. Day-ahead baseload settled £11.18/MWh firmer at £162.95/MWh and day-ahead peak £14.91/MWh higher at £185.51/MWh, while the half-hourly system price exposed a remarkable intraday spread, printing zero at 04:14, averaging just £56.08/MWh between 13:30 and 16:00 as renewable output peaked, then ramping to £252.00/MWh at 19:18. Friday has opened tighter, with the 05:00 to 09:30 window averaging £214.52/MWh and a high of £265.00/MWh. Nuclear availability is the developing concern. A new unplanned outage at Heysham 2 unit 7 began on 22 October, removing 115 MW for an expected 58 days, on top of unit 8 fully offline since September, with further Heysham, Torness and Hartlepool outages scheduled from late November into January. French unavailability for the rest of October has been revised up to an average of 20.7 GW, around 6 GW worse than a year ago, which constrains the interconnector support available to cover UK evening peaks. On the forward curve, November 2026 baseload stands at £174.34/MWh with December marginally below it at £172.52/MWh, before January 2027 peaks at £187.60/MWh and Q1 2027 at £177.92/MWh gives way to £134.18/MWh for Q2 2027. Stronger wind is forecast through the weekend, with gas-for-power demand expected to fall by 6 mcm/day.
Other Commodities
Brent front-month settled at $113.17/bbl, up $4.35, and has traded above $114/bbl this morning, close to the year high of $114.44 set on 4 May, having begun the week nearer $107/bbl and dipped on Tuesday when US-Iran diplomacy briefly looked plausible. WTI settled at $99.47/bbl, up $2.39. The renewed strength reflects Houthi attacks extending to Saudi targets including the Red Sea port of Yanbu, an oil field and an airport, shifting the perceived risk from shipping lanes to export infrastructure. Coal was broadly static, with the API2 ARA Cal-27 marker at $147.00/tonne and the Cal-28 and Cal-29 contracts slightly softer at $136.74/tonne and $135.80/tonne. In carbon, EU allowances for December 2026 settled at €86.47/tonne, up €0.56, while UK allowances for the same delivery settled at £64.14/tonne, up £0.18, leaving the UK discount at £8.30/tonne, modestly wider than the prior session. Asian LNG pricing firmed, with December assessments up around 1.1 per cent, reinforcing competition for the flexible cargoes Europe needs through the winter. Sterling was little changed at $1.3399 and €1.1937.