Reports of oil tankers being hit near Strait of Hormuz drives prices up
The bulls kept a firm grip on the NBP on Monday, with the Winter 26 front-season contract rocketing another 3.9% day-on-day and closing at its highest level in over three months after breaking psychological resistance at 130p/therm (4.4p/kWh).
The US and Iran continue to exchange airstrikes in violation of their recent ceasefire, ramping up regional tensions and making the transportation of seaborne oil and gas shipments extremely unsafe, especially following reports of tankers being hit near the Strait of Hormuz.
An unplanned outage at the UK’s Perenco Bacton terminal also added to the price pressure in the afternoon.
The terminal, which processes gas from Central and North Sea offshore fields, was taken offline, removing supply at a rate of 7.8mcm/d.
Over the past three sessions, the front-season has netted gains of 9.5%, and this morning the contract is trading close to 134p/therm, holding just south of where it was trading at the end of March.
UK baseload power prices continued their upward trajectory on Tuesday, mirroring strength across the wider energy complex.
British generation fundamentals and grid supply-demand dynamics remained broadly unchanged, with wind holding its place as the largest contributor to the power mix at 7.8GW/25.2%, but with gas (CCGT) at 22.7% and imports at 17.6%, no single source was dominant.
The price increases were mostly driven by external commodity markets, specifically bullish natural gas prices, which directly set the marginal cost for UK power generation.
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Price commentary courtesy of Crown Gas and Power 