DAILY MARKET REPORT – 23/02/2024
Another downward day yesterday as the market once again tests the lows not seen for some time, and manages to set new low points.
Temperature wise, the latest long term forecasts show little change with a bit of a dip below seasonal normal for the coming days before rising above to start March and then back below for the second half of March and in to early April.
Speaking of April, this morning Ofgem confirmed the latest quarterly price cap at £1,690 per year for the typical user paying by direct debit. As said many times before, that’s not the number to focus on as you’ll likely not be a ‘typical user’. Instead it’s important to look at the unit rates for your area, usage per fuel and of course payment type. The announced cap is slightly above where forecasts were predicting, but is lower than the current January cap and due to the current wholesale price levels (as you can see from our report) is expected to go lower at the next cap period in July if this trend continues.
So from April the typical unit rates will be 6.04p/kwh for gas and 24.50p/kwh for electricity together with standing charges of 31.43p/day for gas and 60.10p/day for electricity. We can already see comments surrounding increased standing charges and a call to abolish them, however this may not be in the consumers interest and we will look to write a piece on why they exist to help with market understanding in due course.
Yesterday saw the TTF Front Month contract settle at €23.19 (from €23.98) and the NBP Front Month contract at 57.30p (from 59.12p).
No unplanned outage this morning and we see a flow level at 340mcm (340). Russian nominations showing Velke Kapusany at 40.5mcm (40.0) and Sudzha at 42.4mcm (42.4). Nord Stream remains unavailable. EU gas storage showing at 64.69% full as per AGSI+. LNG vessels due to arrive in UK next couple of weeks is 5.
This morning we see the Front Month TTF contract at €23, NO CHANGE to the previous settlement.
A quick check on some key contracts (rounded to nearest whole):
Curve TTF Front Month €23, Front Season €24 (vs €23 and €24)
Curve NBP Front Month 57p, Front Season 58p (vs 59p and 60p)
UK Gas NBP spot 56p (from 60p)
UK Power DA £58 (from £53)
UK power prices show the UK Front Month Baseload contract at £55 (£56) and Front Season at £56 (£56).
In other areas of the market Brent Oil is at $84 ($83) and EUAs are at €53 (€55). Henry Hub is at $1.73 ($1.77) and JKM is at $8.16 ($8.30) with TTF Equiv of $7.35 ($7.60).
Numbers in brackets show the previous reports value.