I plan to use more wood and less central heating this winter, so I've just ordered a cubic metre of logs for the winter, earlier than I normally would. The price hasnt changed that much since December from the same supplier, up from £95 to £100, which was pretty typical last time. Other suppliers locally are now charging up to £145 per m3, and I'm sure that will keep going up as autumn approaches.
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
I plan to use more wood and less central heating this winter, so I've just ordered a cubic metre of logs for the winter, earlier than I normally would. The price hasnt changed that much since December from the same supplier, up from £95 to £100, which was pretty typical last time. Other suppliers locally are now charging up to £145 per m3, and I'm sure that will keep going up as autumn approaches.
Just about to order our logs in - better get a move on!
LONDON (Reuters) - Major energy traders are taking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as they scramble to plug a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply gap after several outages hampered efforts to fill European storage ahead of the winter heating season.
Unplanned disruptions at LNG plants in the United States, Nigeria and Australia have wrong-footed traders, including BP and Shell, forcing them to pay inflated costs for alternative supplies.
BP took a more than $500 million hit to replace LNG cargoes lost after a sudden shutdown of the Freeport LNG plant in Texas in June, industry sources told Reuters.
Both BP and Shell have taken enormous hits from pulling out of Russia due to the war. When COVID kicked off and petrol was 99p, and no one wanted oil, they suffered enormous losses and crash in share price. Shell falling from £23 down to £9.
This is business good times and bad times. Did the Government let them stop paying tax in the hard times, did they give them public money…. NO
But, now the fact that they are paying 65% tax (including windfall) isn’t enough for some people. The £400 you are going to get plus whatever else they do, is already being paid for…. By the business, not the state.
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
Which gas and electricity companies are you referring to?
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Why would the Govt want to subsidise the massive profits that these companies are making? Wouldn't it be easier and more cost effective to take it in house where profits are not the main goal?
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Is this a bad thing necessarily? If their business is unsustainable without causing massive, unprecedented harm to millions of households and businesses across the UK then maybe they ought not to be in business.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
I think a big problem was that there were too many operators. Let's be honest, when you change from one provider to another, the gas/electricity comes from the same place. We are paying for discounted prices from companies that have gone bust. This is an industry that needs to be run by one provider for the public and the environment not many providers for the shareholders. Call me a marxist
All the utilities should have remained nationalised and run by the state. We now have private companies making huge profits whilst ordinary people suffer. I used to think that privatisation was a good thing, but it's clear now that privatising the utilities has been very bad for the average person.
LONDON (Reuters) - Major energy traders are taking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as they scramble to plug a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply gap after several outages hampered efforts to fill European storage ahead of the winter heating season.
Unplanned disruptions at LNG plants in the United States, Nigeria and Australia have wrong-footed traders, including BP and Shell, forcing them to pay inflated costs for alternative supplies.
BP took a more than $500 million hit to replace LNG cargoes lost after a sudden shutdown of the Freeport LNG plant in Texas in June, industry sources told Reuters.
Both BP and Shell have taken enormous hits from pulling out of Russia due to the war. When COVID kicked off and petrol was 99p, and no one wanted oil, they suffered enormous losses and crash in share price. Shell falling from £23 down to £9.
This is business good times and bad times. Did the Government let them stop paying tax in the hard times, did they give them public money…. NO
But, now the fact that they are paying 65% tax (including windfall) isn’t enough for some people. The £400 you are going to get plus whatever else they do, is already being paid for…. By the business, not the state.
BP will hand billions of pounds to shareholders after tripling its profits to nearly £7bn in the second quarter of the year amid high oil prices during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sparking anger from MPs and campaigners as families struggle in the cost of living crisis.
The FTSE 100 oil company on Tuesday said its preferred measure of profit, which it describes as its underlying replacement cost profit, rose to $8.5bn (£6.9bn) between April and June. That is up from $6.2bn in the first three months of the year, and three times BP’s underlying profits of $2.8bn in the second quarter of 2021.
It was the second highest quarterly profit in BP’s history, behind only its $8.8bn underlying profit in the summer of 2008.
Profitting from people suffering ain't alright in my book.
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Is this a bad thing necessarily? If their business is unsustainable without causing massive, unprecedented harm to millions of households and businesses across the UK then maybe they ought not to be in business.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
The issue is in the raw material side, not the end of the supply chain. If British Gas have to pay 3x per therm then selling it for 2x is not doable unless the government top it up. There is very little the government can do with the likes of BP or Shell where their profits are derived from selling into the ever increasing global wholesale markets.
I hasten to add that I was never in favour of privatisation and believe that all utilities should be state owned.
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Is this a bad thing necessarily? If their business is unsustainable without causing massive, unprecedented harm to millions of households and businesses across the UK then maybe they ought not to be in business.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
I don't disagree and it is a way of sweeping back into state ownership the distribution side - the Government as owners of the distributors would still have to pay the market rate for the raw material.
Delusional maybe I bet his got more shares in them than Boris.
Are you actually for real? Like - seriously an actual person? Or is there a group of people controlling your posts by committee, trying to deliberately find the worst, most cliched hot takes possible?
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Is this a bad thing necessarily? If their business is unsustainable without causing massive, unprecedented harm to millions of households and businesses across the UK then maybe they ought not to be in business.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
How much would the prices change if BP and Shell keep their prices the same?
They won’t just drop their prices because the UK gov are in charge, so the new publicly owned companies would still trade at a loss and require subsidisation.
Nationalisation Shell and BP, could, quite rightly start a war.
I don't have an ideological view on whether utilities should be state owned or private - whatever works best in my view. But I'm amazed that the defauult position of some is that state run agencies are more effcient. The passport office, the DVLA, the Land Registry, border control - they all seem paragons of incompetence and customer disservice as far as I can see.
I don't have an ideological view on whether utilities should be state owned or private - whatever works best in my view. But I'm amazed that the defauult position of some is that state run agencies are more effcient. The passport office, the DVLA, the Land Registry, border control - they all seem paragons of incompetence and customer disservice as far as I can see.
Mainly as a result of sub contracting work to the likes of that wonderful example of Private Sector incompetence Serco.
I think a big problem was that there were too many operators. Let's be honest, when you change from one provider to another, the gas/electricity comes from the same place. We are paying for discounted prices from companies that have gone bust. This is an industry that needs to be run by one provider for the public and the environment not many providers for the shareholders. Call me a marxist
All the utilities should have remained nationalised and run by the state. We now have private companies making huge profits whilst ordinary people suffer. I used to think that privatisation was a good thing, but it's clear now that privatising the utilities has been very bad for the average person.
I don't have an ideological view on whether utilities should be state owned or private - whatever works best in my view. But I'm amazed that the defauult position of some is that state run agencies are more effcient. The passport office, the DVLA, the Land Registry, border control - they all seem paragons of incompetence and customer disservice as far as I can see.
Mainly as a result of sub contracting work to the likes of that wonderful example of Private Sector incompetence Serco.
Border control maybe. Not sure you can blame Serco for the others.
LONDON (Reuters) - Major energy traders are taking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as they scramble to plug a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply gap after several outages hampered efforts to fill European storage ahead of the winter heating season.
Unplanned disruptions at LNG plants in the United States, Nigeria and Australia have wrong-footed traders, including BP and Shell, forcing them to pay inflated costs for alternative supplies.
BP took a more than $500 million hit to replace LNG cargoes lost after a sudden shutdown of the Freeport LNG plant in Texas in June, industry sources told Reuters.
Both BP and Shell have taken enormous hits from pulling out of Russia due to the war. When COVID kicked off and petrol was 99p, and no one wanted oil, they suffered enormous losses and crash in share price. Shell falling from £23 down to £9.
This is business good times and bad times. Did the Government let them stop paying tax in the hard times, did they give them public money…. NO
But, now the fact that they are paying 65% tax (including windfall) isn’t enough for some people. The £400 you are going to get plus whatever else they do, is already being paid for…. By the business, not the state.
BP will hand billions of pounds to shareholders after tripling its profits to nearly £7bn in the second quarter of the year amid high oil prices during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sparking anger from MPs and campaigners as families struggle in the cost of living crisis.
The FTSE 100 oil company on Tuesday said its preferred measure of profit, which it describes as its underlying replacement cost profit, rose to $8.5bn (£6.9bn) between April and June. That is up from $6.2bn in the first three months of the year, and three times BP’s underlying profits of $2.8bn in the second quarter of 2021.
It was the second highest quarterly profit in BP’s history, behind only its $8.8bn underlying profit in the summer of 2008.
Profitting from people suffering ain't alright in my book.
at least BP pay their taxes in the uk tbf. And would actually be an easy win to tax those profits more.
Far too late now but what a pity we didn’t follow the Norwegian model of dealing with ‘our’ North Sea oil and gas instead of the Thatcher model of sell everything off as quickly as possible to the private sector.
I read some where that it's basically inevitable the energy suppliers will be bailed out like the banks were in 2008, which would completely wipe out the headroom for the £20 billion in tax cuts our future PMs have promised.
I don't have an ideological view on whether utilities should be state owned or private - whatever works best in my view. But I'm amazed that the defauult position of some is that state run agencies are more effcient. The passport office, the DVLA, the Land Registry, border control - they all seem paragons of incompetence and customer disservice as far as I can see.
LONDON (Reuters) - Major energy traders are taking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as they scramble to plug a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply gap after several outages hampered efforts to fill European storage ahead of the winter heating season.
Unplanned disruptions at LNG plants in the United States, Nigeria and Australia have wrong-footed traders, including BP and Shell, forcing them to pay inflated costs for alternative supplies.
BP took a more than $500 million hit to replace LNG cargoes lost after a sudden shutdown of the Freeport LNG plant in Texas in June, industry sources told Reuters.
Both BP and Shell have taken enormous hits from pulling out of Russia due to the war. When COVID kicked off and petrol was 99p, and no one wanted oil, they suffered enormous losses and crash in share price. Shell falling from £23 down to £9.
This is business good times and bad times. Did the Government let them stop paying tax in the hard times, did they give them public money…. NO
But, now the fact that they are paying 65% tax (including windfall) isn’t enough for some people. The £400 you are going to get plus whatever else they do, is already being paid for…. By the business, not the state.
BP will hand billions of pounds to shareholders after tripling its profits to nearly £7bn in the second quarter of the year amid high oil prices during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sparking anger from MPs and campaigners as families struggle in the cost of living crisis.
The FTSE 100 oil company on Tuesday said its preferred measure of profit, which it describes as its underlying replacement cost profit, rose to $8.5bn (£6.9bn) between April and June. That is up from $6.2bn in the first three months of the year, and three times BP’s underlying profits of $2.8bn in the second quarter of 2021.
It was the second highest quarterly profit in BP’s history, behind only its $8.8bn underlying profit in the summer of 2008.
Profitting from people suffering ain't alright in my book.
at least BP pay their taxes in the uk tbf. And would actually be an easy win to tax those profits more.
Even speaking as a BP shareholder (v modest) I think this is the way to go, and I wouldn't complain in the slightest. Apply the taxes when required and remove them whenever energy prices fall back.
I only bought them as a hedge against high fuel prices anyway, and I've made enough profit to keep my house warm for almost half an hour.
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Is this a bad thing necessarily? If their business is unsustainable without causing massive, unprecedented harm to millions of households and businesses across the UK then maybe they ought not to be in business.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
How much would the prices change if BP and Shell keep their prices the same?
They won’t just drop their prices because the UK gov are in charge, so the new publicly owned companies would still trade at a loss and require subsidisation.
Nationalisation Shell and BP, could, quite rightly start a war.
Do you mean like the war currently raging in France when EDF was nationalised?
Well of course the tax take from the likes of BP and Shell will increase just by virtue of the increased profits and then the already imposed windfall element. So it comes down to whether that sum is enough to help Joe public offset the costs however the government chooses to do that - cash payments, freezing or reducing the cap etc.
They can only ever rob Peter to pay Paul.
What mechanism ultimately doesn’t really matter as long as it’s fair and directed where needed.
Calling for more tax may be right but may not be necessary if the tax take expected / forecast covers the sums needed. Not sure we’ve seen the forecast sums and how that’s being spent. If it isn’t they will inevitably have to tax more as Joe public can’t be stretched further.
Isn’t the only long term answer to influence the market price via OPEC members etc. ?
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Is this a bad thing necessarily? If their business is unsustainable without causing massive, unprecedented harm to millions of households and businesses across the UK then maybe they ought not to be in business.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
How much would the prices change if BP and Shell keep their prices the same?
They won’t just drop their prices because the UK gov are in charge, so the new publicly owned companies would still trade at a loss and require subsidisation.
Nationalisation Shell and BP, could, quite rightly start a war.
Do you mean like the war currently raging in France when EDF was nationalised?
EDF primarily uses gas to generate electricity - also nuclear and other renewables. They will be paying for that gas on the wholesale market at the ever increasing wholesale prices. The French Government are taking the hit - perhaps as should ours.
Starmer should now announce that Labour will nationalise all the gas and electricity companies and ensure that these type of price rises will not happen under their watch. A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
That won't necessarily help. The price rises are linked to the global wholesale prices and it is the likes of BP and Shell (the exploration companies) that are making the big profits. The operating companies like Scottish Power (my provider) are passing on the costs they are incurring. BP and Shell can sell into the global market at the prevailing price.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
Is this a bad thing necessarily? If their business is unsustainable without causing massive, unprecedented harm to millions of households and businesses across the UK then maybe they ought not to be in business.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
How much would the prices change if BP and Shell keep their prices the same?
They won’t just drop their prices because the UK gov are in charge, so the new publicly owned companies would still trade at a loss and require subsidisation.
Nationalisation Shell and BP, could, quite rightly start a war.
Do you mean like the war currently raging in France when EDF was nationalised?
You should look into the difference between EDF and Shell / BP
As far as I’m aware EDF don’t source their own oil and gas like BP / Shell, they buy it and the French government subsidise the sale. That is something we could and should be doing.
Comments
A major vote winner in my opinion.
Apologies for getting political.
LONDON (Reuters) - Major energy traders are taking hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as they scramble to plug a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply gap after several outages hampered efforts to fill European storage ahead of the winter heating season.
Unplanned disruptions at LNG plants in the United States, Nigeria and Australia have wrong-footed traders, including BP and Shell, forcing them to pay inflated costs for alternative supplies.
BP took a more than $500 million hit to replace LNG cargoes lost after a sudden shutdown of the Freeport LNG plant in Texas in June, industry sources told Reuters.
Both BP and Shell have taken enormous hits from pulling out of Russia due to the war. When COVID kicked off and petrol was 99p, and no one wanted oil, they suffered enormous losses and crash in share price. Shell falling from £23 down to £9.
This is business good times and bad times. Did the Government let them stop paying tax in the hard times, did they give them public money…. NO
But, now the fact that they are paying 65% tax (including windfall) isn’t enough for some people. The £400 you are going to get plus whatever else they do, is already being paid for…. By the business, not the state.
If the Government want to stop the price cap going up then they are going to have to subsidise the operating companies (and that's not an unreasonable thing to do) otherwise they will all go pop.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little but what's to stop the government soaking up those businesses that fail as the buyer of last resort and starting the process of returning our nationally important utilities into public ownership?
BP will hand billions of pounds to shareholders after tripling its profits to nearly £7bn in the second quarter of the year amid high oil prices during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sparking anger from MPs and campaigners as families struggle in the cost of living crisis.
The FTSE 100 oil company on Tuesday said its preferred measure of profit, which it describes as its underlying replacement cost profit, rose to $8.5bn (£6.9bn) between April and June. That is up from $6.2bn in the first three months of the year, and three times BP’s underlying profits of $2.8bn in the second quarter of 2021.
It was the second highest quarterly profit in BP’s history, behind only its $8.8bn underlying profit in the summer of 2008.
Profitting from people suffering ain't alright in my book.
I hasten to add that I was never in favour of privatisation and believe that all utilities should be state owned.
I only bought them as a hedge against high fuel prices anyway, and I've made enough profit to keep my house warm for almost half an hour.
EDF primarily uses gas to generate electricity - also nuclear and other renewables. They will be paying for that gas on the wholesale market at the ever increasing wholesale prices. The French Government are taking the hit - perhaps as should ours.
As far as I’m aware EDF don’t source their own oil and gas like BP / Shell, they buy it and the French government subsidise the sale. That is something we could and should be doing.