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[keith with the teef]

Well, my supplier has gone under: utility point.

We was always told to shop around and so I did. Now look whats happened!

So we will see where this goes. Will Johnson bail them out?

Too late me thinks.

[Ed P]

Problem is that it is all political. No one in the UK even mentions Nord Stream 2 link , the Russian Gas Pipeline into Europe. It is finished and ready to transport Russian gas, but it has been held up for ages. Initially due to US concerns (geopolitics wrt Ukraine gas supplies from Russia), and now because of screwing around by Brussels for similar reasons.The Russians are playing the game of ‘it isn’t our fault if you will not let us use our pipeline’, and we don’t mind if you have to pay higher prices to us.

For our part, our political masters are also dancing around on eggshells. The huge Glengorm gas field east of Aberdeen was found by the Chinese state company CNOOC and is under political pressure from all sides (Scottish Green Party, US concerns and in the other direction dreams of Scottish Independence needs the revenues!). Of course no-one want to be reminded of UK gas fracking!

It is also very political due to climate change concerns (roll on warmer weather!), and the elephant in the room —  there are long periods when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine which sits badly with current ‘renewables’ plans, and the forthcoming Climate Change Summit.

The net result is that politicians would like nothing better than to kick the whole mess into the long grass and hope that it all goes away.

Good luck with getting someone to take on your account, you are supposed to have a fallback but all the major suppliers are ducking and weaving as they too want to avoid huge spot prices.

[JayCeeDee]

I remember at the time of the ‘birth’ of the small utility companies, brought about to introduce competition to the Big 6, everyone was spouting about it being the same molecules of gas and the same electrons of electricity, the infrastructure was the same, it was all about who you paid to manage your account and you could choose your supplier based on cost and service provided.

Based on that, you should not be cut off, but if they stop collecting your DD remember to put it safely aside somewhere for when someone comes to collect.

The big mistake made by the UK was to not follow on from our pioneering work in the Nuclear Generation field. We suffered from ‘Cold War’ worries about  nuclear and shut off development when we should have been modernising, making safer and consolidating the lead we had. Maybe if the Green movement had been as vocal then about the whole coal/gas fired generation of power as they are now, and less about Nasty Nuclear we may have been in a better situation.

[keith with the teef]

@ EDP. The net result is that politicians would like nothing better than to kick the whole mess into the long grass and hope that it all goes away.

He he. 🙂 I’m sure they would as normal.

EDP you got those rss feeds well tuned. ty for the heads up on that.

@JCD. As far as I know all will go well with who ever takes over? But for sure if I am given a cool down period to shop around and find cheaper then I will switch. Pretty sure it will get messy then.

 

[Ed P]

More on the news confirming JayCeeDees point saying that victims of small companies going belly up need do nothing except take a photo of their gas meter using their phone. Their account will then be auctioned to the big guys with the lowest bidder winning. (lowest bidder=higher price unfortunately). At the moment with just a few thousand customers affected its all manageable, the big worry is the next tranche of companies going belly up as the bigger companies will not be able to afford taking on hundreds of thousands of price capped customers who will pay less than market price. BoJo et al better pray that the EU allow Nord Stream 2 to come on line pretty soon, and hopefully bring down the extreme spot prices now being paid.

Gas prices are a mix of something like 90% at a term prices which are related to crude oil prices and 10% spot market prices governed by supply and demand. Nord Stream 2 will mean more gas available at prices closer to term price. The Russians are quite reasonably saying that their existing pipeline (which runs through Ukraine, can only transport a finite amount), any additional demands can only be met if the new pipeline is allowed to flow.

[Ed P]

According to Reuters Nord Stream 2 is fully complete, and it is all in the hands of Brussels regulators. I cannot see UK gas prices falling until this pipeline gets on line, so it will be interesting to see what BoJo does when CO2 production shuts again in three weeks time. If you check the Natural Gas Futures market, you will see that the market thinks prices will be even higher in three weeks time.

BoJo is going to have to lobby the EU to let Russia shaft the Ukraine to get him off the hook of spoiling Christmas 2021 as he did for Christmas 2020. However, I guess that as Biden has waved two fingers at BoJo’s promised US trade deal, I guess BoJo will not mind a little revenge.

Geopolitical life gets interesting!

[Ed P]

I have just read that the Government and OfGen say that they could not have forecast these price increases! (I locked in my gas price in January this year, and deliberately did not shop around, so one person at least did not follow their views)

Take a look at the previously linked market data and you can see that the Government story is complete BS. The market has been on a very steady increase since May (an increase that is even now accelerating). The Government know (or should know) that base prices for Natural Gas are heavily linked to crude prices, they have also known that crude oil prices have been on a steady rise since April and are forecast to reach $75/barrel very soon.

As usual, our incompetent Government just feeds us lies and BS, and hopes that problems will magically disappear.

[keith with the teef]

It did come as a surprise that they need natural gas to manufacture carbon dioxide.

So am I right in just thinking that they just burn the bugger to get co2? when the atmosphere is saturated with it!

Lads?

[Ed P]

CO2 is a major by-product of the typical process to make fertilizer. You probably do not want the details but they do a controlled burn of natural gas together with steam over a nickel catalyst to make syngas which is then treated to remove the CO2 before going on to make ammonia and hence fertilizer.  Normally the CO2 is worth damn-all,  so not many companies bother to extract it (breweries for example have masses of the stuff produced in the brewing process). I guess a lot of companies will start to take a lot more interest in their ‘waste’ products.

[Les.]

Interesting story. I had wondered about breweries. About 55 years as years ago I needed some fresh gas analytical equipment. Ten minutes per sample with the Orsat apparatus to get oxygen percentages together with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. It was really only the oxygen that was needed, and a new piece of equipment was on the market. A paramagnetic device which compared the location of a “dogbone” in a magnetic field. The field was changed by the oxygen compared with nitrogen and the other products of combustion.

What has this got to do with carbon dioxide? The equipment was designed by (or with the backing of) the Distillers Company. Carbon dioxide is a big unwanted bi-product, and they needed to know about the atmosphere in their systems, and this was their answer. I later found out that they were the main suppliers of carbon dioxide. When I got my MIG welder 20 years ago, it required an inert “shielding” gas. The best ones were based on argon, but the pauper (me) could get away with cheap CO2, especially in conjunction with a pre=heater. Who supplied the CO2, Distillers company of course.

OK, MAYBE we need fertilizer, but I bet most people would be happy to drink more beer and get the CO2 that way.

Les.

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