Energy suppliers going bust

[therealhantsram]

29 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Here's an interesting chart of the wholesale gas prices.

The middle peak is roughly where the war in Ukraine starts and the gas market starts to panic

It then drops off over summer as demand is much lower when it's warm, but slowly starts to ramp up again as we head into the winter

But look what has happened over the past couple of months. The price has fallen back down to the lows that they said wouldn't happen.

So what's going on?

The theory is that it's a combination of 3 things

1) Countries in their panic have been stockpiling gas supplies

2) Inflation and recession have slowed the economy, meaning less demand for energy

3)  Add to that a pretty mild autumn so far has also led to lower consumer demand and therefore the suppliers have an overstock of gas

These basic supply and demand principles have therefore driven the price down

So will we see cheaper bills?

Don't bank on it 

 

 

 

The spot prices are irrelevant because the suppliers buy their gas on the futures market.

[Stive Pesley]

8 minutes ago, therealhantsram said:

The spot prices are irrelevant because the suppliers buy their gas on the futures market.

Yeah. alright Martin Lewis!

?

[Wolfie]

39 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Here's an interesting chart of the wholesale gas prices.

The middle peak is roughly where the war in Ukraine starts and the gas market starts to panic

It then drops off over summer as demand is much lower when it's warm, but slowly starts to ramp up again as we head into the winter

But look what has happened over the past couple of months. The price has fallen back down to the lows that they said wouldn't happen.

So what's going on?

The theory is that it's a combination of 3 things

1) Countries in their panic have been stockpiling gas supplies

2) Inflation and recession have slowed the economy, meaning less demand for energy

3)  Add to that a pretty mild autumn so far has also led to lower consumer demand and therefore the suppliers have an overstock of gas

These basic supply and demand principles have therefore driven the price down

So will we see cheaper bills?

Don't bank on it 

 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, therealhantsram said:

The spot prices are irrelevant because the suppliers buy their gas on the futures market.

Indeed..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cxwdwz5d8gxt/natural-gas

 

The trend is going the right way but it'll be a while before it affects bills. A long cold winter would see prices shooting up again unless we all become friends with Russia some time soon.

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

British Gas, my favourite supplier, we were dumped onto those robbing basterwards when People Energy, they were ok but  ran out of Gas, literally.

Standing order went up 300% straight away but no point changing according to comparison websites, so I stayed with BG.

4th of Jan, SO another 40%,  checked our account and we are in credit...

The price cap went up by 39% in January but should not really affect bills since the government protection is in place till April so Rishi picks up the difference, according to Martin Lewis.

I tried to ring them today and nobody's in but the live chatbot is awake, it directed me to this page to tell me that out SO is too high and should really be 10% less.

I' ll try to speak  to a real person to see if they can explain what is going on,

My guess is someone needed a Xmas bonus and is trying it on.

 

 

 

[Stive Pesley]

5 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

British Gas, my favourite supplier, we were dumped onto those robbing basterwards when People Energy, they were ok but  ran out of Gas, literally.

Standing order went up 300% straight away but no point changing according to comparison websites, so I stayed with BG.

4th of Jan, SO another 40%,  checked our account and we are in credit...

The price cap went up by 39% in January but should not really affect bills since the government protection is in place till April so Rishi picks up the difference, according to Martin Lewis.

I tried to ring them today and nobody's in but the live chatbot is awake, it directed me to this page to tell me that out SO is too high and should really be 10% less.

I' ll try to speak  to a real person to see if they can explain what is going on,

My guess is someone needed a Xmas bonus and is trying it on.

I think it's done by algorithms, there is no way these greedy bar stewards are paying people to work out how much to increase DDs to. Of course the algorithms will be simplistic and no one will have tested them properly

It shouldn't be that difficult eh? They all know how much you usually spend in a year, and have absolutely zero visibility of whether your usage should be going up or down (ie a new more efficient boiler should see gas go down, and an house extension will see usage go up etc). So it should always just be "we estimate you will use the same as last year"

I actually went back through my last 10 years of bills to get the predicted energy use figures. My average predicted energy usage was  considerably higher than my average actual energy usage....

Almost as if we've sold these utilities to thieving corps who will do anything to try and squeeze a few drops more profit out of the customer base

 

[Reggie Greenwood]

I just pay what owe them every month. 

[TigerTedd]

13 hours ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

I just pay what owe them every month. 

And do you pay that with a cheque or postal order? Or a bushel of chickens?

[Reggie Greenwood]

6 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

And do you pay that with a cheque or postal order? Or a bushel of chickens?

Direct debit , asked to get invoices what i owe. 

[TigerTedd]

1 hour ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

Direct debit , asked to get invoices what i owe. 

Oh I see. But doesn’t that mean your bills vary wildly from month to month? 

[Reggie Greenwood]

1 minute ago, TigerTedd said:

Oh I see. But doesn’t that mean your bills vary wildly from month to month? 

Not if you are a tight git like me ?

[Stive Pesley]

Hmmmm

https://www.cityam.com/revealed-brits-are-paying-the-highest-electricity-bills-in-the-entire-world/

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

35 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Hmmmm

https://www.cityam.com/revealed-brits-are-paying-the-highest-electricity-bills-in-the-entire-world/

So surprised. A deregulated market now  in the hands of greedy large firms. Any other outcome would have been a miracle.

Moving on, nothing to see.

[maxjam]

Could be worse...

 

[Wolfie]

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

Hmmmm

https://www.cityam.com/revealed-brits-are-paying-the-highest-electricity-bills-in-the-entire-world/

No idea who City AM is but that's an awful article, full of contradictions. presumably the first table must be a 5 year average (it doesn't say). The increase it a lot more than 35% that it claims (more like 100%+).

Really badly written and not referenced.

[Stive Pesley]

57 minutes ago, Wolfie said:

No idea who City AM is but that's an awful article, full of contradictions. presumably the first table must be a 5 year average (it doesn't say). The increase it a lot more than 35% that it claims (more like 100%+).

Really badly written and not referenced.

The link came from a normal news aggregator so I assumed it was a valid source. There doesn't seem an obvious "about" page on their website but it looks to be a genuine (free) London Business News paper - on nearly it's 4000th issue ?‍♂️

 

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

The link came from a normal news aggregator so I assumed it was a valid source. There doesn't seem an obvious "about" page on their website but it looks to be a genuine (free) London Business News paper - on nearly it's 4000th issue ?‍♂️

 

It is - it's been going at least 20 years from what I can recall and is usually available at most rail and tube stations; not the FT, but a decent quick read, though probably doesn't have the quality of journos that the FT has.

[TuffLuff]

 

[Ramarena]

On 17/01/2023 at 11:37, Stive Pesley said:

The link came from a normal news aggregator so I assumed it was a valid source. There doesn't seem an obvious "about" page on their website but it looks to be a genuine (free) London Business News paper - on nearly it's 4000th issue ?‍♂️

 

Those that live/have lived in London should be familiar with it. 

It’s been a free newspaper mostly given out around the transport hubs on a weekday, it’s always been aimed at the business community, so never really crossed into a full on mainstream outlet.