NBP prices firm up amid reports of attacks on ships in Strait of Hormuz

NBP curve contracts firmed on Thursday, as reports of tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf eclipsed otherwise improved supply fundamentals.

According to the UKMTO and other maritime agencies, at least five commercial oil tankers have been struck by unknown projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz this week.

Iran has claimed responsibility for at least three of the incidents, citing transit protocol violations, specifically vessels attempting to traverse the vital waterway with transponders switched off, a practice known as travelling ‘dark’.

Gains of 4p/therm (0.14p/kWh), though significant, were likely limited by a massive surge in Norwegian gas imports across this week.

Data from Gassco shows that flow nominations for Friday jumped to 68.2mcm, a near three-fold increase from just 18.3mcm on Monday.

Tracking gas higher, baseload power prices corrected higher on Thursday as the winter season got underway and a sharp turn in the generation mix added support.

Wind output dropped from 47.9% of the stack to 25.8%, while gas-fired generation climbed from 23.0% to 40.0%, pushing renewables down from 61.1% to 43.7%.

Nuclear supplied 13.6% of generation, with three of EDF’s eight reactors currently offline and fleet output at around 3.9 GW.

Units at Heysham 1 and Hartlepool are due back from refuelling over the next week. Heysham 2’s Reactor 8 remains in a statutory outage until late November, keeping nuclear availability below capacity for much of the early winter.

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Price commentary courtesy of Crown Gas and Power