Energy Market Report – 25 February 2026
UK wholesale energy markets softened on Tuesday as mild weather and healthy LNG supply continued to erode winter risk premiums. Prompt gas settled around 75p/therm, with power and commodities drifting lower in sympathy.
Natural gas prices eased across the curve, with NBP prompt settling near 75p/therm and TTF tracking a similar path. Demand remains comfortably below seasonal norms, supported by temperatures running roughly 4°C above the five-year mean across north-west Europe, which has sharply reduced storage withdrawal rates and chipped away at the risk premium that built through winter. Norwegian flows to the UK are broadly steady, with Langeled nominations rising to around 60 mcm and total Norwegian pipeline supply to the continent at roughly 325 mcm/day, though curtailments are expected to increase towards 37 mcm/day in the coming days. LNG send-out remains robust – February imports into the continent are on track to reach nearly 19 bcm, up around 20% year-on-year – with South Hook leading UK terminal output. Further along the curve, Sum-26 fell 0.75p/therm to 73.50p/therm and Win-26 shed a similar margin to 78.50p/therm, reflecting the softer demand outlook. However, European storage levels cap the downside: aggregate EU sites sit at 30.59% full, matching 2020 levels, while German storage at 20.67% is at its lowest in five years and the Netherlands trails at just 11.39%, ensuring the summer refilling task remains a key pricing consideration. A planned outage at Nyhamna from the start of March, expected to remove almost 20 mcm/day for the month, will trim Langeled flows and bears watching alongside the onset of broader summer maintenance from mid-April.
UK power prices posted small losses, largely tracking the wider energy complex lower. Day-ahead baseload settled at £77.37/MWh and peak at £80.66/MWh. Wind narrowly outpaced gas as the largest generation source on Tuesday, with output forecast to exceed 17 GW on Wednesday before dropping below seasonal normal from 2 March and remaining subdued until at least 11 March – a pattern that could support prompt peaks and gas-for-power demand if it materialises. Curve power fell in line with gas, with Sum-26 baseload slipping to £67.75/MWh and Win-26 down £1.50 to £74.00/MWh. Nuclear availability remains a structural concern: Hartlepool Unit 2 has been offline on an unplanned outage since June 2025, Heysham 2 Unit 7 went down unplanned in mid-February, and further planned outages at Heysham 1 are scheduled from early March. These reductions in firm capacity keep a floor under forward prices, particularly for winter products, while clean spark spreads compressed as gas and carbon both eased.
In broader commodities, Brent crude eased to $70.77/bbl, down $0.72, with the market remaining range-bound. Coal ARA CIF Cal-27 slipped $1.68 to $111.44/tonne, though it holds a 3.5% gain on the week. Carbon markets showed tentative signs of stabilisation: EUA Dec-26 settled at €70.67/tonne, holding above the €69 support tested during the January sell-off, while UKA Dec-26 fell to £45.62/tonne, with the spread between the two schemes remaining wide. Geopolitical risk continues to underpin the complex ahead of the third round of US–Iran nuclear talks in Geneva on Thursday, and any breakdown could trigger a sharp move higher, though for now physical fundamentals are doing most of the heavy lifting – and those fundamentals point softer.