Snapshot - 05 August 2026
Wholesale gas prices fell again on Tuesday as reports of an imminent agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz pulled the risk premium out of the front of the curve. UK day-ahead gas settled in the mid-130s p/therm, down close to 4 per cent, with the winter contracts easing by a similar margin and the far curve broadly flat to slightly firmer. The move has continued into this morning, though it remains a headline-driven repricing rather than anything the physical system is signalling: Norwegian nominations into the UK have fallen for a second session, LNG send-out is flat, and European storage remains at its weakest for the time of year in almost twenty years.
Power went further than gas on the prompt. Day-ahead baseload dropped by around £40/MWh into the high £80s as wind and solar loaded the middle of the day, and the day-ahead peak product settled roughly £39/MWh below baseload - an unusual inversion, but one that reflects a genuinely renewables-heavy delivery day rather than any market fault. Intraday prices were violent in both directions, with the system swinging by more than £100/MWh between the late afternoon trough and the evening ramp. Forward power eased by a couple of pounds across the winter contracts, then turned higher again this morning as the market looked ahead to wind falling away sharply from tomorrow.
Across the wider complex, crude took the largest hit, Brent settling close to $79/bbl at three-week lows after a second consecutive heavy session, with coal drifting lower alongside. Carbon moved the other way, with both European and UK allowances a touch firmer and the gap between them essentially unchanged, which kept a floor under further-dated power. Sterling was quiet. The near-term direction now hinges almost entirely on whether the Hormuz agreement is confirmed, with a thin storage buffer and a heavy August nuclear outage programme both arguing against complacency.
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