Trouble With Gas

Energy consumers - which is to say, anyone foolish enough to turn on a light, warm themselves in winter or prefer cooked food to raw - are to have their gas bills hiked by twenty-five per cent. Wholesale gas prices are due to rise by seventy per cent, according to the managing director of British Gas - not because of the recent spat between Russia and the Ukraine, but because of "a combination of factors including lack of import infrastructure, lower than expected imports through the interconnector pipeline with Belgium and high demand caused by the cold winter". Anyone who has lived through the train-stopping, boiler-buggering inefficiency of a British winter knows better than to expect adequate preparations for any cold that may happen to occur. "Last year, chemicals companies Ineos Chlor and Terra Nitrogen shut down capacity in response to price rises during the late-November cold snap", cold in late November being one of the many chance circumstances for which British industry is too efficiently managed to plan in advance. Still, I don't remember lack of import infrastructure turning up as an excuse before. The reason for this seems obvious enough: last year, while the lack of import infrastructure was presumably being rigorously implemented, British Gas' parent company announced half-year profits of one and a half billion pounds. The profits for supplying gas to people's homes, however, were down to a piddling hundred and sixty-five million, causing consternation in the boardrooms. The CBI, whose squeals of outrage at any hint of regulation for its members' profiteering are the sonar by which 11 Downing Street steers, have uttered dire warnings that sustained price rises "could have a downward effect on the economy". On the other hand, a rise in the shareholders' contribution to society would be impracticable even if it were thinkable. Such are the dilemmas for which our top executives are paid so highly to pass on the financial cost. "I don't think the supply industry has the capacity to absorb very much of these increases," sobs the managing director of British Gas.