A second day of losses for the NBP curve was witnessed on Thursday

Gas Market

On its final day trading as front month on the ICE platform, September traded to a high of 93.79p per therm before expiring at 91.73p with a loss of just over a penny.  The contract had traded down to a low of 90.85p as concerns of increased geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and in Ukraine wrestled with comfortable supply dynamics for direction.  Contracts past the front month settled a touch lower with Winter-2024 0.66p down at the close. Reports emerged that production at the Freeport LNG plant in Texas had halted late on Wednesday due to a fire alarm test but markets in Europe were unphased as a restart was successful on Thursday morning and the plant was already ramping back up to full operations. UK Gas imports from Norway were slightly down yesterday and these were offset by lower exports to the continent and the prompt eased by an average of a penny and a half.  

Power Market

Declines witnessed on the NBP curve pressured the baseload futures on Thursday for the most part.  The September contract eased by £0.47/MWh to close at £80.63/MWh while the Winter-2024 product settled at £92.08/MWh, down £0.17/MWh. Baseload for the Day ahead was propped up by lower wind forecasts for Friday as levels are not expected to exceed 4.0GW having averaged over 10.2GW for the past week. While carbon EUAs increased by around 0.5% yesterday, contracts have been rangebound for the week with EUA contracts for Dec-24 and Dec-25 within 10 cent per tonne of last Friday’s close.  UKAs continued to climb and reached a seven-week high yesterday.    

Oil Market

Concerns about reduced supplies lifted crude oil prices on Thursday as Brent looks set to finish higher for the week. Political disputes over Libya’s central bank and oil revenue have led to closure of over half of the country’s oil production with reports that output is down to 591,000 barrels per day from an average of 1.2m bpd in July. The dispute has not impacted the country’s oil exports yet, but disruptions are more likely as the dispute lingers. Meanwhile Iraq has exceeded production quotas agreed with OPEC and is to reduce its output in September to compensate. Production could be trimmed by around 150,000 barrels per day from the agreed quota of 4m bpd, however, Iraq produced 4.25m bpd for July. At the close, Brent was $1.29 a barrel higher at $79.94.   Markets this morning GB natural gas futures have increased this morning with near months over 2.00p higher in early action.  October has taken over as front month on ICE and is 2.29p up at 96.45p.  The Winter-2024 contract has gained just over 2.00p with the last trade agreed at 106.45p.  The GB gas system is forecast short for today as demand has increased to 160mcm in order to compensate for the lower wind generation.  After moving sideways for the last week, carbon EUAS are trading flat this morning with the Dec-24 contract last exchanging at €71.08 per tonne.  Crude oil prices are slightly higher with October for Brent at $80.15 a barrel and the November contract which will take over as front month on Monday at $78.94 a barrel.