Snapshot - 10 September 2026
Wholesale energy prices rose again on Wednesday, extending a run of gains into a fourth consecutive session and pushing UK gas and power to their highest levels in close to four years. The move was driven by supply risk rather than weather. Ukrainian drones struck major gas processing facilities deep inside Siberia, adding to a market already dealing with Qatari LNG cargoes suspended under force majeure and European storage sitting well below normal for the time of year. NBP day-ahead gas rose by around four and a half per cent to sit just below 200 p/therm, with the front season trading through that level in Thursday's session.
Power followed gas higher, with UK day-ahead baseload up close to six per cent. Nuclear availability is the complicating factor, with several units offline or running at reduced output ahead of the heating season, leaving gas-fired plant setting the price for more hours than usual. Intraday balancing prices swung across a range of roughly £200/MWh on Wednesday, from below £70/MWh in the early hours to close to £270/MWh through the evening peak. Forward power for the coming winter now sits at roughly double the level seen at this point last year.
Elsewhere, Brent crude held above $100 a barrel for a second day after further attacks on Gulf shipping, while coal was broadly unchanged. Carbon was the exception, barely moving in either the European or UK schemes, which suggests the market reads current energy strength as a supply problem rather than a demand-led one. The shape of the forward curve is telling: prices for the next two seasons carry a heavy premium, while contracts two years out have hardly moved at all.
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