Energy Market Report - 28 September 2026
A weekend diplomatic rejection has reversed Friday's sell-off across UK and European energy markets, with gas and power both reopening firmer after losses of around 4 per cent into the close. The wider commodity complex has followed suit, with crude recovering ground and carbon markets steady.
Natural Gas
Gas prices fell across Europe on Friday on the combination of an improving Norwegian supply schedule and a short-lived easing of Middle East risk, before recovering this morning after President Trump rejected Iran's proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief and a ceasefire. NBP day-ahead settled at 179.30 p/therm, down 10.70p, with the October contract at 179.80 p/therm and Winter 26 at 182.16 p/therm; Dutch TTF October settled at €72.07/MWh. Norwegian exit nominations have since risen to 259.6 mcm/day as planned maintenance returns to service, and flows to the UK are up 11 mcm/day via Langeled, though an extended compressor failure at Troll still holds 46 mcm/day offline. UK production is firm at 92 mcm/day, the system opened 11 mcm/day long and LNG sendout is forecast at 8 mcm/day, with ten cargoes scheduled into north-west European terminals through 1 October. The weak point remains storage: EU inventories crossed 70 per cent over the weekend at 70.87 per cent but sit around 15 percentage points below seasonal norms, with Germany at 57.37 per cent and the UK at just 31.35 per cent, while mild weather 4°C to 8°C above norms through Wednesday continues to defer heating demand until a cooler front arrives on Thursday.
Electricity
Power tracked gas lower on Friday with no independent domestic driver, October baseload settling at £142.09/MWh, Winter 26 at £147.81/MWh and Cal 27 at £116.47/MWh, alongside falls of a similar scale in Germany and France. Day-ahead baseload dropped £31.09 to £130.14/MWh, with peak settling below baseload at £104.93/MWh on strong midday solar output that pushed the intraday low to £4.49/MWh just before one o'clock. Gas-fired generation rose to 32.3 per cent of the stack to overtake wind at 28.8 per cent, with renewables slipping just below half the mix. A sharp renewable lull has lifted spot prices for today right across the region, with Germany clearing at €198.00/MWh, France at €203.00/MWh, the Netherlands at €235.75/MWh and the UK at £171.75/MWh, and UK system prices swinging from negative territory through much of Sunday afternoon to £257.80/MWh before dawn this morning. Wind is forecast to recover strongly from midweek, lifting UK output above 15 GW, though supply-side availability remains a constraint with a fresh unplanned outage beginning at Hartlepool 1 today, continued restrictions at Heysham, and French nuclear unavailability holding at 24.1 GW after low river flows forced a curtailment at Cattenom.
Other Commodities
Crude eased into Friday's close with Brent M+1 settling at $104.32/bbl and WTI at $92.41/bbl, before rebounding back above $106/bbl this morning on the Hormuz rejection, with commercial LNG transits through the waterway still largely halted under Qatari force majeure. Coal was close to unchanged, API2 ARA Cal 27 settling at $134.27/tonne. Carbon markets were quiet in both schemes: EUA Dec 26 settled at €86.78/tonne and UK ETS Dec 26 at £59.42/tonne, leaving the UK allowance at a discount of roughly €17.72/tonne to its European equivalent. In global gas benchmarks, JKM fell 2.14 per cent to $25.82/MMBtu and Henry Hub October settled at $3.20/MMBtu, a narrowing of the Asian premium that continues to favour Atlantic cargoes heading to Europe. Sterling firmed 0.27 per cent against the dollar to $1.3251 while easing slightly to €1.1622, and in the wider macro complex gold fell below $4,200/oz to a seven-week low as traders moved to price a high probability of a Federal Reserve rate rise next month.