NBP, National Balancing Point,

The UK NBP gas market was established in the late 1990’s, making it the most long-lived gas market in Europe.
Gas at the NBP trades in pence per therm.
It is similar in concept to the Henry Hub in the United States – but differs in that it is not an actual physical location.

The NBP gas market permits trading from a wide range of participants; financial traders, industrial users, utilities companies, power generators, LNG suppliers and oil & gas producers.

Unlike continental European trading hubs such as Zeebrugge and TTF, trades made at the NBP are not required to be balanced, and there is no fixed penalty for being out of balance.

Instead, shippers out of balance at the end of the day are automatically balanced through the 'cash-out' procedure whereby the shipper is automatically made to buy or sell the required quantity of gas to balance their position at the marginal system buy or sell price for that day.

This cash out process is not considered to be a penalty in the same way as those imposed on shippers in continental markets, because the cash-out prices are often very close to the spot price.
As a result of this daily market liquidity, the UK's NBP is frequently used to balance a shipper's position on the continent by way of the Bacton – Zeebrugge interconnector.

The UK NBP price is extensively used as an indicator of price for Europe’s wholesale gas market.