Market Insights 03/03/2025

DAILY MARKET REPORT – 03/03/2025

Welcome along to March.

Where do we start? Well after a misleading headline caused a sell-off quickly followed by a correction last week, there is only one focal point to now discuss – and that is of course the events seen on Friday (after market close) in The White House.

It was fully expected that the minerals deal being signed was just a formality, however the outcome was anything but that. President Zelenskyy left the US much earlier than planned without signing the deal and flew to Europe to an emergency summit rather than a celebration.

It seems Europe is not fully aligned in its outlook and this will of course concern the markets, but none more so than what the US will do next. With them already looking at every US tax Dollar spent, will they review their contributions towards Europe, including NATO?

It is no doubt that energy markets this morning are showing concern, up almost 7% in the first trades cleared. Why? Because Europe has turned away from Russia and towards the US for its energy needs – and the US is not in a good mood right now. Europe (or parts of it at least) will now try and find a solution for peace and seek the US approval. Some European countries have already expressed their concern at this.

In a month where things were looking calmer in the energy space, it seems another spanner in the works has arrived to cause concern and we face yet another volatile period.

Friday saw the TTF Front Month contract settle at €44.32 (from €45.15) and the NBP Front Month contract at 104.83p (from 107.12p).

No unplanned outage this morning and we see a Norwegian flow nomination level at 331mcm (325). EU gas storage showing at 38.23% (39.54%) full as per AGSI+. LNG vessels due to arrive in UK the next couple of weeks is 12 (14).

This morning we see the Front Month TTF contract at €47, UP €4 to the previous settlement.

A quick check on some key contracts (rounded to nearest whole):
Curve TTF Front Month €47, Front Season €44 (vs €44 and €45)
Curve NBP Front Month 105p, Front Season 105p (vs 107p and 107p)
UK Gas NBP spot 112p (from 109p)
UK Power Base spot £101 (from £101)

UK power prices show the UK Front Month Baseload contract at £86 (£91) and Front Season at £84 (£86).

In other areas of the market Brent Oil is at $73 ($74) and EUAs are at €71 (€73). Henry Hub is at $3.83 ($3.93) and JKM is at $13.85 ($13.99) with TTF Equiv of $13.53 ($13.78).

Numbers in brackets show the previous reports value.