UK Energy Market Summary to Friday 23rd May 2025
Closing prices 23.05.2025
British gas prices declined on Thursday. The NBP spot price dropped by around 4%, closing at 2.9 p/kWh due to improved European gas supply. Similarly, on the forward curve, the NBP Winter 2025 delivery contract lost around 1%, settling at 3.3 p/kWh, weighed by higher stock levels.
UK near-term gas prices rose on Friday as a smaller unplanned outage at the Troll gas field led to a temporary supply reduction. Consequently, NBP spot price surged by 1.7% to settle at 3.0 p/kWh. Further along the curve, the NBP Win-2025 delivery contract edged 0.5% higher to close at 3.3 p/kWh, driven by geopolitical risks as the EU Commission is expected to propose a legal ban on Russian gas imports by 2027.
At time of writing, European gas storage levels are 46% full, with the UK 26% full. European gas storage levels are trending just below the 5-year average throughout 2024. Over the past week gas has accounted for 20% of the UK generation mix with wind accounting for 36%, solar 12% and nuclear accounting for 19%. Below summarises curve prices as at close of business on Friday.
Curve UK Gas & Electricity Markets
Other Energy Markets
Oil prices rose on Friday after U.S. President Trump postponed imposing a 50% tariff on EU imports until 9 July, easing trade tensions and supporting demand expectations. Additional support came from Geopolitical escalations.
European carbon prices extended losses on Thursday, following the downward trend in gas prices. As a result, EUAs expiring in December 2025 fell by 0.8%, closing at 72.15 EUR/tonne.
