Energy Market Report - 24 June 2026
Wholesale energy markets opened on the back foot on Wednesday as easing Middle East tensions continued to strip risk premium out of gas and oil, with strong supply and warm weather adding to the bearish tone. The notable exception was power, where an extreme Tuesday-evening balancing squeeze lifted UK day-ahead settlements before the next-day market reset sharply lower.
Natural Gas
Sentiment remains bearish as the geopolitical premium unwinds: weekend progress on US-Iran talks, increasing vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and confirmation that the Ras Laffan explosion struck only a facility serving local Qatari demand have all reassured the market on supply. NBP day-ahead settled at 102.00 p/therm on Tuesday with the front-month around 100 p/therm, and prices eased again this morning, sitting below late-last-week levels; TTF traded similarly, with the day-ahead near €41/MWh. Supply is comfortable, with Norwegian exit nominations robust at close to 338 mcm/day and Langeled flows recovering strongly from a week ago, while UK LNG send-out dipped slightly on reduced output at Isle of Grain ahead of a US cargo due there on 25 June. Above-seasonal temperatures and steady storage injection across the Continent are keeping a lid on the near curve, even as a brief UK heatwave lifts cooling-related demand.
Electricity
Power was the standout, settling sharply higher day-ahead before easing this morning. UK day-ahead baseload settled at £167.13/MWh, up from £124.16, with the peak at £121.94/MWh, after Tuesday evening combined thin wind, gas supplying around 39 per cent of the GB mix, French nuclear curtailments on high river temperatures, a heavy UK reactor outage schedule and a demand spike around the England versus Ghana match; the system operator paid exceptionally high prices into the evening peak, with the balancing price spiking to £800/MWh. The next-day market has since reset to around £114/MWh as wind recovers and gas-for-power demand falls. Further out, the forward curve drifted lower in line with gas and carbon, with Winter 2026 baseload near £95.79/MWh, though a long list of nuclear outages and the risk of further heat-driven restrictions limits the downside.
Other Commodities
Crude extended its slide to three-month lows on expectations of freer shipping through Hormuz, with Brent front-month settling at $77.08/bbl and WTI near $73.21/bbl, while ARA coal eased to around $112.20/tonne for the front year. Carbon fell across both schemes but the UK market led the way down, with UK allowances for December 2026 dropping £2.71 to £56.16/tonne against a more modest €0.86 fall in EU allowances to €80.71/tonne, widening the spread between the two. In global gas, Asian JKM softened to $15.74/MMBtu and Henry Hub held near $3.15/MMBtu, pointing to a well-supplied LNG market. Sterling was little changed, firming slightly to 1.1601 against the euro and slipping to 1.3203 against the dollar, with no material read-across to commodity pricing.