Snapshot - 29 May 2026
Energy markets firmed on Thursday before turning more cautious this morning, as a tentative US-Iran ceasefire framework and the prospect of the Strait of Hormuz reopening took some of the geopolitical heat out of the complex. Gas opened firmer than Thursday's close but eased back through the morning, while Brent crude fell to the low-90s dollars per barrel and ended the week down sharply.
Carbon was the clear outperformer. EU allowances posted their largest weekly gain in over a month and UK allowances also firmed, lending support to power even as oil retreated. UK power held up better than gas, with week-ahead and seasonal baseload firmer on stronger carbon and a forecast dip in wind generation early next week. Comfortable spring margins, with renewables meeting close to 60 per cent of demand, kept the prompt contained despite a heavy run of nuclear outages.
The wider picture stayed comfortable. Norwegian flows were trimmed by an extended outage but aggregate supply held up, several LNG cargoes are due into north-west Europe next week, and storage continued to build through the injection season. With weather mild but cooling into the weekend, the near-term balance looks well supplied, leaving carbon and the geopolitical headlines as the main swing factors.
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