Snapshot - 09 September 2026
Wholesale energy prices pushed to multi-year highs on Tuesday, with the move driven almost entirely by geopolitics rather than any deterioration in physical supply. UK gas day-ahead settled in the high 180s p/therm, up roughly 7p on the day, and Winter 26 reached its strongest level since early 2023. Continental gas moved in the same direction, with Dutch prices up around four per cent. Brent has since traded above $100/bbl for the first time since late July.
The trigger has been a sharp escalation in the Gulf, with strikes on Iranian-linked tankers, Iranian retaliation against US assets, and reported attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure. Qatar's extended force majeure on cargoes compounds the picture by removing an obvious replacement source of supply. Against that, the physical position is reasonably comfortable: Norwegian flows are back near 295 mcm/day, the UK system opened long and a steady run of largely US LNG cargoes is scheduled into north-west Europe. The genuine soft spot is storage, with EU inventories running around 12 percentage points below this time last year.
UK power rose sharply on the prompt, with day-ahead baseload gaining more than £25/MWh into the mid-£150s as wind output was forecast to halve and an unusually heavy nuclear outage programme left the system leaning on gas. Intraday conditions were volatile, swinging from prices above £200/MWh in the morning to negative territory in the afternoon before recovering hard into the evening peak. Forward power gained more modestly, up around £6/MWh across the winter contracts. Carbon and coal both firmed alongside the complex, and generation margins on gas plant are now very thin.
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