Energy Market Report - 24 September 2026
Diplomacy dominated the tape on Wednesday, with stalled US-Iran talks at the United Nations lifting crude even as European gas and power fell back on milder weather forecasts. The result was an unusually split session, in which the gas complex unwound part of its recent winter risk premium while the oil complex added to its own.
Natural Gas
Gas prices fell because the weather changed, not because the supply position improved. Forecasts now hold temperatures across north-west Europe above seasonal norms into early October, capping heating demand at the point in the year when the market normally begins paying for it, and that was enough to outweigh a supply picture that remains genuinely tight. NBP day-ahead settled at 182.25 p/therm, down 2.75p, with October down 2.90p to 179.48 p/therm and Winter 26 down 2.93p to 181.25 p/therm; TTF day-ahead settled at €72.78/MWh. The unplanned outage at Norway's Troll field has been extended to 27 September and continues to remove around 46 mcm/day, with total Norwegian nominations running at 224.2 mcm/day this morning and Norwegian pipeline imports to the UK down to 23 mcm/day. Even so, the UK system opened 24 mcm/day long and UK LNG sendout eased to 11 mcm/day, with a cargo due at the Isle of Grain and a run of US and Algerian deliveries into north-west Europe between 26 and 28 September. European storage stood at roughly 70 per cent full on 21 September, around 10 percentage points below last year, which is the main reason the curve is giving ground grudgingly rather than collapsing.
Electricity
Power followed gas lower and got a second push from a much healthier generation mix. Wind output more than doubled on Wednesday to around a third of the stack, gas-fired generation fell from roughly 46 per cent to 28 per cent and combined renewables recovered to above half the mix. UK day-ahead baseload settled at £152.55/MWh, down £9.20, and day-ahead peak at £151.10/MWh, leaving peak marginally below baseload as strong midday solar flattened the daily shape. The forward curve moved far less, with October baseload down £0.96 to £141.87/MWh, Winter 26 down £0.94 to £147.23/MWh and Calendar 27 down 0.6 per cent to £115.04/MWh. Nuclear availability is the quiet constraint, with unplanned outages at Heysham 1 and Hartlepool alongside planned work at Heysham 2 and Torness. On the Continent, German and Dutch spot baseload fell to €138.12/MWh and €155.59/MWh, while France rose to €158.11/MWh on dry conditions weighing on hydro output and raising questions over nuclear cooling.
Other Commodities
Crude ran in the opposite direction to gas. Brent front-month settled at $103.08/bbl, up $3.83 or 3.9 per cent, and WTI rose 1.8 per cent to $92.16/bbl, though both remain below last week's levels. The gains came from stalled diplomacy rather than any shift in physical balances, and were tempered by news that Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, shut on 11 September after a drone attack, has returned to service. Coal was subdued, with API2 ARA Cal-27 easing $0.68 to $133.22 per tonne. Carbon softened alongside power: EUA Dec-26 fell €0.72 to €86.01 per tonne amid reports of political pushback against the current policy trajectory, while UK ETS Dec-26 was effectively unchanged at £58.22 per tonne, leaving the UKA discount at roughly €18 per tonne. In global LNG, November JKM eased to $25.73/MMBtu and Henry Hub firmed to around $3.06/MMBtu, keeping the Atlantic arbitrage comfortable. Sterling was softer on both crosses, falling 0.76 per cent to $1.3237 and easing to €1.1635.