Energy Bills

[AshVilla]

I heard the lib dems talking about energy furlough and freezing the current price cap where it is currently.

Seems fair but would cost upwards of 50 bill and how are we going to pay for it.

 

[Dante_Lockhart]

An energy company sympthasier at work said that the profits aren't profits because the put the money back into the network for improving piping, supply, renewable energy etc...

Sorry, but even if that is the case that's not really whats important now is it? What's the point of improving the network if there's no-one there to pay for it?

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

I heard the lib dems talking about energy furlough and freezing the current price cap where it is currently.

Seems fair but would cost upwards of 50 bill and how are we going to pay for it.

 

Windfall tax on the energy creators, they are making £6b to £9b each per quarter, and that’s at current prices. 

It’s not ideal, but then neither is asking the public to find thousands of pounds they don’t have.

Or drop the cap down, and then support the people and businesses that need it.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Genie

[markavfc40]

17 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

I heard the lib dems talking about energy furlough and freezing the current price cap where it is currently.

Seems fair but would cost upwards of 50 bill and how are we going to pay for it.

 

We can shake this. It worked a treat for track and trace/PPE when it spunked money into friends/family of Tory MP's and Tory donors. 

[Dante_Lockhart]

Not gonna lie, my anxiety is sky high at the moment. I haven't smoked in 9 years but it's getting to the point where I'm debating scrounging one from one of the smokers at work.

[delboy54]

Re Martin Lewis,

I listened to him on Radio 4 this morning very impassioned and clearly identifying what is going to happen in the next few months. Wish others would speak out on the media as well as Martin Lewis does, there is clearly anger growing....

[bickster]

1 minute ago, delboy54 said:

Re Martin Lewis,

I listened to him on Radio 4 this morning very impassioned and clearly identifying what is going to happen in the next few months. Wish others would speak out on the media as well as Martin Lewis does, there is clearly anger growing....

Which others that have been invited on to the tellybox are you talking about? Only asking because Lewis seems to have a monopoly on energy crisis microphones

[Genie]

There was a spike in January due to increased demand following covid, ok it is what it is. Then there was a spike in Spring due to the war in Ukraine, grrr, ok it is what it is. 
Since then it just keeps going up and up and up, why? Nobody is going without. The suppliers are making ludicrous amounts of money. It’s complete bullshit. 

[lapal_fan]

2 hours ago, Dante_Lockhart said:

An energy company sympthasier at work said that the profits aren't profits because the put the money back into the network for improving piping, supply, renewable energy etc...

Sorry, but even if that is the case that's not really whats important now is it? What's the point of improving the network if there's no-one there to pay for it?

That's not how it works.

You pay levies on your bills which go towards network maintenance, and to say "don't bother now because it's not important" is wrong too.  The network as it stands is years out of date, for gas and electric, National Grid is about 12/15 years behind where it needs to be, it's antiquated and losses from the power stations to your home are increasing - to not maintain as it stands now, will cost you more through further losses from system to home. 

You're probably referring to the profits the companies are making, record breaking 1/4 on 1/4.. That's a different issue. 

[bickster]

Anyone live or currently near Whitchurch?

This Petrol Station on the A41 north of Whitchurch is selling Petrol at £1:50 and Diesel at £1:60

A colleague has just been to Wolves and back using that route. The queue is rather large though

Either way its a good sign

Also I bought Diesel today at £1:79.9 at Sainsbury's Great Homer St ( @chappy)

 

[foreveryoung]

Heard something interesting today, from guy who apparently works for OVO,  He was saying, it's all bull**** our bills going up because of the war in Ukraine, oil prices  etc. The real reason is the Share holders of the big boys shell, BP, are getting cold feet, due to fossil fuels going a bit out of fashion and other more viable renewables to be invested in This in turn causes there dividends to not increase at there usual rate, which is now forcing the BP's, Shell's of the world to increase the costs to consumers to warm their feet up and prevent the share holders from investing elsewhere, as they are shi* scared of losing them to other investments.

It's certainly interesting and food for thought. Though Whether this is the reason or not, you cannot justify such extortionate increases on the consumer, while pumping out record profits year on year.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, foreveryoung said:

Heard something interesting today, from guy who apparently works for OVO,  He was saying, it's all bull**** our bills going up because of the war in Ukraine, oil prices  etc. The real reason is the Share holders of the big boys shell, BP, are getting cold feet, due to fossil fuels going a bit out of fashion and other more viable renewables to be invested in This in turn causes there dividends to not increase at there usual rate, which is now forcing the BP's, Shell's of the world to increase the costs to consumers to warm their feet up and prevent the share holders from investing elsewhere, as they are shi* scared of losing them to other investments.

It's certainly interesting and food for thought. Though Whether this is the reason or not, you cannot justify such extortionate increases on the consumer, while pumping out record profits year on year.

It's not interesting, it's not food for thought, it's utter bollocks

[foreveryoung]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

It's not interesting, it's not food for thought, it's utter bollocks

I think these companies do have to please the shareholders though. If we don't pay the big bucks the shareholders don't get there millions and pull out.

[bielesibub]

How about the government take a windfall tax from these companies over the next x quarters and then invest this money 100% into building a re-nationalised network from renewable green (not nuclear) energy. Give energy back to the public that aren't with the big suppliers at a cost price then sell any surplus energy back to the suppliers at a bum rapingly high % profit of which gets re-invested back into the network. Oh no wait, this would never do we live in a capitalist 'democracy'.  I've probably also underestimated the number of civil servants needed to look after the £1,000,000 hole punch and solid gold pencil sharpeners, not mentioning the solar powered chocolate teapots and chocolate heat pumps.

end of the day, we're all being sucked into a hole that is getting bigger and bigger, once the hole is big enough and only when no one remembers who is to blame, they'll trundle out a new Bretton Woods system using a globalised digital currency, that'll allow the man to stay rich and the people to be grateful that they have been saved by the blockchain. hip, hip, hooray.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

I think these companies do have to please the shareholders though. If we don't pay the big bucks the shareholders don't get there millions and pull out.

As Bicks said, whatever your mate told you is nonsense.

To an extent, it's true that companies like to keep the shareholders sweet. But what's happened with the oil companies is that due to Russia throttling back severely on their output of gas and oil, plus a worldwide surge in demand for energy that demand has massively outstripped supply.  This has meant that the marketplace in which oil and gas is traded has seen prices rise rapidly as essentially nations compete for the limited resource and bid the price up. In turn that has meant that while the costs to extract the gas (and oil) are unchanged (pretty much) the price it gets sold for in the market has risen and made them much much larger profits than normal. Of those profits, about a third has been returned (given) to shareholders in the form of increased dividend payments, so they're well happy.

So that's that. Another thing that's happened is how different governments approach the issue of these energy shortages and price rises and excess profits. Our government has been slow to act and a lot less supportive of both domestic and business energy consumers than have many other nations. This obviously means the impact (in terms of price rises fed through to us) has and will be much greater than abroad.

Yes shareholders in oil companies are very happy with their bonus dividends and share price rises, but no they're definitely not the cause of the price rise. Pandemic recovery and Ukraine, plus most all the nations who provide the oil and gas (e.g. Saudi) are not increasing their output, because the price rise also suits them just fine - more money for the same output - if they increase output, the price will drop.

There's much more to it even than I've written, but that's the gist of it.

It's frustrating to read people (e.g. your mate, or whoever it was) advance utter rubbish conspiracy theory drivel on stuff like this, and then innocent people like yourself spread it around and it travels and gains traction, and it's bollex.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

The real reason is the Share holders of the big boys shell, BP, are getting cold feet, due to fossil fuels going a bit out of fashion and other more viable renewables to be invested in This in turn causes there dividends to not increase at there usual rate, which is now forcing the BP's, Shell's of the world to increase the costs to consumers to warm their feet up and prevent the share holders from investing elsewhere, as they are shi* scared of losing them to other investments.

I'll just say something more on this, as well.

Dividends are based on profitability  - companies losing money tend not to pay dividends, as it's money going out of the business, when they're already struggling. The other thing is that dividends are set at a percentage of the individual share price. So if a share in Shell is valued at 1 pound, then a 4% dividend is 4p/share, but if the shares are becoming unpopular, then people sell them and the price falls, so the actual dividends fall.

People mostly buy and sell shares based on their view of the prospects for that business - at the moment, people see oil and Gas companies as having a bright short term future with rising share prices and rising dividends.

Longer term, renewables are going to replace O & G, and so unless the likes of Shell and BP do more on renewables, their prospects are not good. They know this, so they spend huge sums lobbying governments to go easy on them, and they do also invest in Green technology and so on, but not nearly enough. They also don't want to throw their very valuable oil baby out before they've got the most they can from it - they're not going to kill off their golden goose, kind of thing, by making it obsolete due to cheaper and cleaner renewables. So they play a game of Greenwashing - trying to advertise their green credentials, but not really doing too much to endanger their gravy train, or make the shareholders unhappy.

The Tories will be loathe to tax the energy extraction companies for fear of upsetting the shareholders and of falling political donations from them, they're much more worried about that than us lot getting royally horsed by sky high prices to keep warm.

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

Heard something interesting today, from guy who apparently works for OVO,  He was saying, it's all bull**** our bills going up because of the war in Ukraine, oil prices  etc. The real reason is the Share holders of the big boys shell, BP, are getting cold feet, due to fossil fuels going a bit out of fashion and other more viable renewables to be invested in This in turn causes there dividends to not increase at there usual rate, which is now forcing the BP's, Shell's of the world to increase the costs to consumers to warm their feet up and prevent the share holders from investing elsewhere, as they are shi* scared of losing them to other investments.

It's certainly interesting and food for thought. Though Whether this is the reason or not, you cannot justify such extortionate increases on the consumer, while pumping out record profits year on year.

Just watch trading places. We're currently in the middle of a very bad gas harvest (because Russia has turned the taps off) so Duke and Duke and others are desperately trying to buy all the gas options which are rocketing as there isn't enough gas to go around. 

Unfortunately this isn't something fabricated by Valentine and Winthorpe so there is no sudden price plunge about to happen. 

Edited August 10, 2022 by sidcow

[blandy]

Just now, sidcow said:

Just watch trading places. We're currently in the middle of a very bad gas harvest (because Russia has turned the taps off) so Duke and Duke and others are desperately trying to buy all the gas options which are rocketing as there isn't enough gas to go around. 

Yep. Though I think the US trades in Texas Crude oil and the UK on the European Brent Crude oil exchange. Gas prices have their own exchanges, rather than be pinned to oil like they used to be, but again the US with all their fracking has a domestic supply that meets all their needs so I’m unaware if they’re actually affected like Europe is for gas. Oil though, they’re also grumbling about prices.  But yeah gas futures and oil futures are what the traders trade.

[Mozzavfc]

From the Times today 

[Demitri_C]

So you guys that were around in the 70s, as was before my time how was it during the blackouts when the miners went in strike?

If blackouts happen in the winter can we survive? As i dont see how as back then when it went 3 day weeks under heath, we can run as a coubtry if that were to happen?