Market Insights 19/05/2025

DAILY MARKET REPORT – 19/05/2025

Another session of little movement seen on Friday to end a week of little action throughout.

Early in the week the anticipation of face to face talks between Russia and Ukraine on Thursday likely pushed the ‘let’s see what happens there’ agenda, but President Putin was not in attendance at those discussions – meaning little progress was made. What has become clear since is Russias expectations of the outcome which includes making five areas of Ukraine internationally recognised as Russia alongside Ukraine becoming a neutral state and not hosting any foreign military. It is expected that the Presidents of the US, Ukraine and Russia may take part in a joint telephone call today to try and make some progress on these peace talks.

On Friday we released our forecast of the Ofgem domestic Price Cap, effective 1st July 2025, at £1,745 – representing around a 6% decrease to the current cap in effect from April. Essentially this cost level would be equivalent to that seen in the January 2025 cap. The reduction is driven by falls in the wholesale cost of energy during the calculation period.

Friday saw the TTF Front Month contract settle at €35.16 (from €35.29) and the NBP Front Month contract at 83.84p (from 84.48p).

Kollsnes on unplanned outage this morning and we see a Norwegian flow nomination level at 302mcm (311). EU gas storage showing at 44.47% (43.67%) full as per AGSI+. LNG vessels due to arrive in UK the next couple of weeks is 2 (2).

This morning we see the Front Month TTF contract at €35, NO CHANGE to the previous settlement.

A quick check on some key contracts (rounded to nearest whole):
Curve TTF Front Month €35, Front Season €37 (vs €35 and €37)
Curve NBP Front Month 84p, Front Season 94p (vs 84p and 94p)
UK Gas NBP spot 84p (from 87p)
UK Power Base spot £86 (from £74)

UK power prices show the UK Front Month Baseload contract at £77 (£76) and Front Season at £84 (£85).

In other areas of the market Brent Oil is at $65 ($65) and EUAs are at €71 (€73). Henry Hub is at $3.33 ($3.36) and JKM is at $11.90 ($11.88) with TTF Equiv of $11.49 ($11.58).

Numbers in brackets show the previous reports value.