Energy Market Report - 23 September 2026
Energy markets moved on diplomacy rather than fundamentals on Tuesday, with prices swinging sharply in both directions as the UN General Assembly produced conflicting signals on the Middle East conflict. Gas and forward power closed modestly higher on the day, prompt power fell steeply, and the wider commodity complex extended a week of losses as supply routes around the region began to reopen.
Natural Gas
Gas prices are caught between a tightening prompt and an easing outlook. UK day-ahead settled 2.40p higher at 185.00 p/therm and Dutch TTF day-ahead was assessed at €74.42/MWh, supported by the heaviest day of Norwegian maintenance this quarter - total export nominations fell to 226.1 mcm/day this morning, with 145.8 mcm/day of production curtailed and an unrelated compressor failure at the Troll field further restricting availability. Most of that work concludes from tomorrow. The UK system itself is well supplied, opening 17 mcm/day long with domestic production up and demand down nearly 12 mcm/day, although LNG sendout at UK terminals fell to 13 mcm/day. The forward market is more relaxed: front-month NBP settled at 182.38 p/therm, down more than 8 per cent on the week, and Winter 26 at 184.19 p/therm has given back around 11 per cent from its mid-September high as the risk premium attached to the Strait of Hormuz erodes. The one structural warning sign is that Summer 27 gas is now trading above Winter 27, a signal that the market is more worried about refilling storage next summer than about getting through this winter, with European inventories at roughly 70 per cent full.
Electricity
UK power prices diverged sharply between prompt and curve. Day-ahead baseload settled at £161.75/MWh, down £36.68 on the session, while day-ahead peak fell further to £155.11/MWh, leaving peak below baseload - an unusual outcome driven by a long system through the middle of the day, with midday prices falling to around £103/MWh, and the tightest half-hours falling outside the peak window, including a £594/MWh print at nine in the evening. Wind fell from 19.4 per cent to 13.8 per cent of the generation stack and gas rose from 36.8 per cent to 46.3 per cent. The forward curve barely moved, with October baseload at £142.83/MWh, Q4-26 at £147.34/MWh, Winter 26 at £148.17/MWh and Cal 27 at £115.69/MWh. Nuclear availability remains a constraint, with roughly 2.5 GW of capacity on planned outage across Heysham, Torness and Hartlepool and further unplanned derates in place. Continental spot prices fell hard, with Germany down €45.50 to €180.68/MWh and the Netherlands off €57.75 to €166.19/MWh, while French hydro reservoirs continue to run at multi-decade-low levels and the French nuclear fleet carries 16.9 GW of unavailability this month against 12.2 GW a year ago.
Other Commodities
Crude fell for a second session as supply routes reopened. Brent front-month settled $1.09 lower at $99.25/bbl and is down 8.7 per cent on the week, while WTI dropped to $90.52/bbl, widening the transatlantic spread to $8.73/bbl as seaborne barrels retain a chokepoint premium that US crude does not. Saudi Arabia restarted its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea on Tuesday, restoring an export route that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran is reported to have signalled a willingness to reopen the Strait within a week subject to conditions. Offsetting that, an armed group closed a valve on the pipeline serving Libya's largest oilfield, removing an estimated 200,000 b/d. Coal firmed, with API2 ARA Cal-27 up $2.30 to $133.91/tonne. In carbon, European allowances for December 2026 edged up €0.14 to €86.73/tonne and are 1.3 per cent higher on the week, while UK allowances added £0.12 to £58.12/tonne but have fallen 4.4 per cent in euro terms, widening the UK discount to €18.97/tonne and improving the relative cost position of UK thermal generation. Asian LNG for October held at $26.05/MMBtu against Northwest European cargoes at $24.98/MMBtu, and US Henry Hub rose 4.6 per cent to $2.96/MMBtu. Sterling was unchanged at €1.1658 and eased to $1.3339, down 1.0 per cent on the week.