Energy Market Report - 30 September 2026
Energy markets fell broadly on Tuesday as Middle East supply routes reopened and a major Norwegian outage concluded, easing the risk premium that had built up through September. Unseasonable warmth and a surge in wind generation compounded the move across British and Continental gas and power, though carbon in the UK scheme moved firmly against the trend.
Natural Gas
Gas prices fell on genuine supply relief rather than demand destruction. The Norwegian system operator confirmed that the unplanned compressor outage at the Troll field had ended after twelve days, at its worst removing 46.2 mcm/day, and total Norwegian export nominations have since recovered to 311.5 mcm/day from 282.2 mcm/day. Day-ahead NBP settled 7.50p lower at 173.00 p/therm, with November at 176.53 p/therm and Q1-27 at 175.27 p/therm, both down around 9p on the day. Dutch TTF front-month closed at €69.81/MWh with day-ahead at €69.16/MWh, and the German and French hubs cleared at €69.52/MWh and €68.18/MWh. Temperatures across the UK and north-west Europe are running 6°C to 11°C above seasonal norms, peaking today before an autumn front brings 15°C to 17°C from Thursday. The constraint that stops this becoming a rout is storage: European sites are 71.33 per cent full at 807 TWh against an 87 per cent five-year norm, with Germany at 57.74 per cent and the Netherlands at 58.15 per cent. On the geopolitical side, commercial LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain restricted under force majeure, with QatarEnergy reported to have extended delivery suspensions to Italy's Edison into early December, while China's decision to exclude LNG from its latest tariff relief framework is expected to free additional cargoes for the Atlantic basin.
Electricity
Power fell further than gas on the prompt because the generation mix shifted decisively. Wind output more than doubled its share of the British stack from 17.4 per cent to 45.6 per cent while gas-fired generation halved from 42.1 per cent to 21.1 per cent, and UK day-ahead baseload settled £19.33 lower at £117.67/MWh. Continental markets fell harder, with German day-ahead at €138.75/MWh, Dutch at €145.75/MWh and French at €147.75/MWh, declines of between €17 and €26/MWh. The forward curve tracked fuel costs down, with November baseload at £145.85/MWh, Q1-27 at £145.91/MWh and Winter-26 at £144.34/MWh, though the moves shrank further out, leaving Summer-27 at £102.70/MWh and Cal-27 at £114.40/MWh. Nuclear availability remains the brake on any sustained fall: Heysham 2-8 has 660 MW out on an 80-day outage, and a 96-day planned outage at Heysham 1-1 starts on Saturday. In France, low river flows on the Meuse have extended the full shutdown of the 3 GW Chooz plant to 13 October with hydro reserves at 51.2 per cent. Today's wind strength is already forecast to reverse, with British output falling below 4 GW from Thursday, and the day-ahead for Thursday delivery is being indicated around £160/MWh.
Other Commodities
Crude gave up ground on recovering supply, with Brent settling $2.69 lower at $102.59/bbl and WTI down 3.48 per cent at $89.38/bbl. Middle East exports have recovered to 17.5 million bpd, roughly 98 per cent of pre-war levels, helped by Saudi Arabia restarting its East-West pipeline at half capacity after drone attacks took it offline earlier in the month, while a planned US release of up to 40 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve added further pressure. Coal eased, with API2 ARA Cal-27 at $134.19/tonne. In carbon, the two schemes diverged sharply: EUA Dec-26 was effectively unchanged at €85.95/tonne while UK ETS Dec-26 rallied £2.90 to £61.86/tonne, a gain of almost 5 per cent that narrows the UK discount to the European allowance to around €13.80/tonne from nearer €17.40, with no clear fundamental trigger in the session and linkage expectations the standing driver. Global LNG benchmarks softened, with JKM front-month down $0.64 at $25.43/MMBtu against Henry Hub spot at $3.18/MMBtu. Sterling was little changed at 1.1666 against the euro and 1.3229 against the dollar.