Snapshot - 01 October 2026
The new gas year has opened with prices moving up rather than down. Winter 26 expired higher on Wednesday and day-ahead gas settled close to 180 p/therm, firmer by around 3 per cent, after unplanned Norwegian field outages and a cooler turn in the near-term weather forecasts. Power rose much further, with day-ahead baseload gaining more than a third to settle in the £160/MWh area and the peak close behind it.
The forward curve stepped up across the board. Deep-winter gas months are trading in the low to mid 180s p/therm, with the peak in January, before falling into the mid 140s by April and the mid 120s to low 130s across next summer. Power followed, with winter months in the high £140s to mid £150s/MWh easing towards £110/MWh by spring. The support is structural rather than weather-driven: European storage sits around 71 per cent, more than 11 percentage points behind last year and well short of the five-year average, and Berlin has now ordered its state-owned supplier to inject a further volume before mid-December.
The wider complex pulled in different directions. Crude slipped back towards $100/bbl on recovering Gulf exports and a surprise US inventory build, coal continued to grind higher, and both European and UK carbon eased slightly. With gas up and carbon down, generation margins for gas plant widened. Norwegian flows have already recovered this morning and wind is picking up, which has taken some heat out of the prompt even as the curve holds its gains.
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