Snapshot - 20 January 2026
Gas and power corrected lower after Friday’s speculative rally, before finding modest support as overnight weather runs turned incrementally colder. NBP front-month shed close to 5 p/therm on the day, unwinding part of the short-covering move, while power followed gas lower and was amplified by a roughly four per cent fall in EU carbon. New US tariff threats linked to Greenland added a softer macro backdrop, weighing on risk sentiment despite limited immediate physical impact.
Gas eased at the front as the market faded excess length. Norwegian flows remain steady around the mid-330 mcm per day range, with a small unplanned outage at Gullfaks trimming about 5 mcm per day until 26 January. LNG send-out stayed strong near 96 mcm per day and the UK system opened long. European storage sits just under 50 per cent, keeping refill risk in focus even as near-term balances look manageable. A firmer US gas market on Arctic cold is a watchpoint, but has not yet fed through to European pricing.
Power tracked gas lower on the prompt. Weak wind around 7.5 GW kept CCGT running hard, but the sharp pullback in carbon reduced thermal costs and accelerated the decline. Curve power held up better, supported by ongoing nuclear outages and expectations that colder risk later in January could return. Improving wind forecasts from mid-week should cap near-term prices if realised.
Oil was broadly flat with Brent near $64 per barrel, reflecting ample supply despite falling Russian exports. Carbon moved lower as weather-driven demand expectations eased, with EUAs and UKAs giving back recent gains. Overall, the snapshot is of a market correcting after an overshoot, with storage levels and weather confidence remaining the key drivers of near-term direction.
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