A very useful piece here. What is not easy to discern, however, is why the regulator allows the energy companies to get away with what amounts to overcharging. The suspicion is that they are being allowed to build up a war chest to finance the greenery. Either way, we are being seriously ripped off, and there is no one looking after the consumer interest.

View full article here

Just pointed a few people here to your writing on gas...and energy supplies
http://www.savethebritishfilmindustry.c ... evolution/

What's in the pipeline is a rigorous system of energy and food rationing and the prohibition of fossil fuel use. Our leaders are now pushing for an escalation of the protests in the Arab World with the objective to bring the oil resources under UN control and cut the distribution to our markets.
And we are paying for it.

Unfortunately the so called Gu-mint is very happy to allow such rip offs, as they get tax income and seeing as how they are flat broke, they'll allow anything to go on.

Same story with the banks. They're being allowed to punt like mad, in the hope that they will make huge profits to be taxed. I say that because the banks aren't makeing the money from ripping people off with derivatives, no sane person/organisation is buying that crap anymore, they aren't makeing the money from lending, as we all know, so it's down to tradeing and rip off fees.

They also aren't lending because they are useing every penny of captal/deposits to finance that tradeing.....Seeing as how the UK bank sector is 5 times the size of the economy,when it all blows up, as it will the Green Tosser and his moronic crew will be history...we unfortunately will be in a God awful mess as well.

So all this talk about controling the banks and forceing them to lend, is just more lies.....

Our civilization is under threat in more ways than we can imagine.
Here I post a video with a great presentation, with fantastic shots from the past space exploration programs but also about the stupidity of the US government and the greens who have planned to screw up our future space exploration programs and new cancer treatments that could save the lives of thousands. The plan is to use the Uranium 233 cold war stockpiles in a Thorium Reactor that will produce power, Uranium 238 for the space program and all the medical isotopes for cancer treatment. A win, win, win proposition now challenged by the Green zealots and our own government. Thorium Reactors would be a great solution for the UK as well but with the current bunch of idiots in power we're going now other way but down the hill.
Enjoy the presentation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdusXIvyLFQ

We're not only ripped off paying high prices for natural gas but also the for oil.
Watch this interview with Trump.
I don't like Trump but what he say's in the interview cuts wood.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/trump-o ... /id/384427

Some folk are truly taking the mick on road LPG pricing, I did a 500 mile round trip Bath > Lowestoft > Bath last Thursday and had a chance to compare prices as I went...


Later, I found an 87.6p/litre supposed price on line but couldn't locate the offending garage.

All Shell + BP ( 5 visited / logged ) have 85.5p and compared to the supermarkets (where one assumes a minimal markup) - that's a 22% spread which seems extraordinary. The pricing didn't follow a regional pattern. The spread on the non supermarkets, non BP-Shell was 74p to 78p per litre. Off motorway sites were as likely to charge the higher price...

This is simply not reflected in most online resources... BP in particular have history of being caught doing the propane predatory price fixing thing - the Yanks fined one of their directors US$250K IIRC.

Are Shell / BP trying it on - and taking a cue from pirate welly sellers at a wet Glastonbury?

Are they testing the market to see what the supply/demand economics thingy does?

At what point do customers get provoked to start putting the fuel in bottles with flaming rags in the top? If they try this with "normal fuel" Cairo won't be the only place where things kick off.

The issue with the utilities is that we all know that what they supply is a highly consistent quality controlled product (legally controlled quality in many cases too) and that the "tariff hell" and bungled (or speculative) billing is part of the subterfuge that they employ to wind extra margin from the users.

People are getting very annoyed with this.

The introduction of smart meters into electricity retail is going to make mobile phone contracts look like models of transparency and honesty.... Although allowing a broker like ahem... Google to select the lowest tariff automagically via the interweb might put a spanner in the works :-) (think telephone least cost routing)

This meddling and cheating has to be addressed.

And now the protests in Egypt are boosting oil prices which according to the biggovernmentblog.com is all organized by..... Obama and his left friends:
http://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2011/0 ... -and-farc/

Just for the record, 60% of the world's oil consumption comes from the Middle East.
Oil prices are set by OPEC and now surpassed the price level of 100 US dollar per barrel.
Many economists believe the last oil price hike triggered the financial crises.

Also read the the following links:

The emperor's pink burka
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/32740

Iran has three major obstacles to overcome before regional dominance can be established:
Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/32736

Also nice to hear John Bolton's view on the developments to find out Obama is acting against the strategic interests of the USA (and so is the EU)

Thanks to these policies we pay ever rising prices for oil and gasoline.

Here is the link to John Bolton's interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z15CrnJB ... r_embedded

Oops, I missed the link to nohotair.

The obfuscation of pricing in oil and gas in particular is endemic. The constant parroting of the spot price is highly misleading when it comes to assessing the margins the operators are in reality getting.

Many oil + gas field developments are structured around a relatively low product price but a sustained long term production - think a mortgage. In Africa contract prices at field are as low as US$12 a barrel. Obviously there are down line costs but this is about right.

I don't know the truth of it, but I was told several years ago by an oil executive that 50% to 75% of supply was at undisclosed contract prices - giving the lie to the "public price of oil" AKA the spot price...

I do recall BG refusing a very public, generous and cheap offer from the Norwegians to supply fixed price gas for 20 years a few years ago. It would seem that many in that company view the volatility in the market as a convenient smokescreen to manipulate pricing to screw the customers for higher mark ups.

As to the state regulators - I'll go with P.J. O'Rourke there - "when you regulate a market - the first thing to be bought and sold is the regulator"

The utility market has some (granted broad brush) similarities to the Northern Rock debacle, in the sense that non-exploring and producing retailers (or big boys with production problems) don't have access to contract prices and are forced into the spot market which is driven by speculation, sentiment and the big producers rather than the supply demand curve - so the pressure is always there to scalp and hike pricing.

DECC and Ofgem ? sheesh, might as well integrate them into energy company PR departments.

I have been buying commercial rated gas for my business for 16 years now,we had very cheap prices up till about 2005,almost to the point they hardly were worth bothering about.Then alot of gas companies that had sprung up after privatisation seemed to disappear,probably unable to make a decent profit.All of a sudden I was faced with dealing at the same few larger companies,like British Gas and Eon.

Prices have gone up and up since 2005,however I have stayed with BG since about 2003(who took over my very cheap Enron contract)as they have consistantly been the cheapest option out there.I keep a very close eye on the prices now,having had a 18% rise last year and the same again this year. I have fixed the last price for 3 years as I expected it to go up again next year.

After reading that article seems my fears were unfounded, as based on what the gas companies say, prices should start dropping next year.This is assuming there is a 3 year delay in the commodity price.Oil has dropped substantially since 2008 and they keep telling me the gas is linked to the oil price,....I will be watching.