British Gas will tomorrow warn householders that their annual gas bills may jump by as much as 30% next winter. The huge rise, the result of soaring wholesale gas prices, would push the average household energy bill to more than £1,200 a year. The company, which provides gas to nearly half the nation’s homes, said it was being forced to put up prices because its retail gas business would otherwise plunge into the red. Forecast wholesale prices for next winter put gas at 85p a therm compared with 47p last winter. The coded warning of more increases in gas prices will come in a trading statement tomorrow, just five months after parent company Centrica reported annual profits of £1.9bn. It will come as yet more unwelcome economic news for the Government, which is battling to fight inflation in the face of soaring domestic energy bills and petrol at £5 gallon. The wholesale price of gas is rising because Britain is forced to import more rather than relying on North Sea supplies. Last year the UK imported 27% of its gas needs, but this figure is expected to hit about 40% in 2008. Centrica is considering buying a third share of a giant £2.5bn wind farm in the Thames Estuary. Shell is selling its stake in the London Array project seven miles off the north Kent coast, which when completed will be the biggest wind farm in the world, with 300 turbines. Sarwjit Sambhi, Centrica’s director of power generation and renewables, said: ‘We would certainly be interested in acquiring this stake.

Related posts...

• June 22, 2010 -- UK Business Energy Prices: (3)
  A new survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit has revealed that over 80% of British firms expect energy and fuel prices to rise sharply and almost 50% have great concern that the UK coul...
• February 21, 2010 -- Identifying a Half Hour Meter: (0)
  How to find out if you have a half hourly meter – So how do you know if you have a half hour meter?  It’s actually quite straight forward, and all you will need to find this out is a recent copy o...
• February 10, 2010 -- UK Business Gas Prices: (0)
  Business Gas Prices can be difficult to understand, as there are many different types of pricing structures available.  You could simply ring around and obtain gas prices direct from suppliers, but it...
• February 7, 2010 -- Oil Prices Back To $70 Range: (0)
  Oil prices plunged in a busy trading session on Friday, triggering big losses across the commodities markets, as investors went back to buying into the US dollar.  Crude oil prices did have a partial ...
• February 5, 2010 -- CRC Business Lights: (1)
  The era of the 'on-all-night' illuminated high street could end, the Environment Agency is predicting. The agency says new rules will force businesses to switch off lights and displays at night to mee...
• February 3, 2010 -- Bglobal Smart Meter Deal: (3)
  Bglobal Plc said it has signed a new agreement to supply and install smart meters for British Gas Business during 2010. The contract value is anticipated at more than £12 million. In addition, the com...

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

You must be logged in to post a comment.