Sharp Increase In SME Energy Prices

This week has seen continued sharp increases in the wholesale cost of Gas & Power resulting in widespread withdrawal of both Corporate and SME prices. Since last Monday Annual Gas prices have increased 18% and Power 11%.
These increases have been supported by an increase in Oil prices and colder than seasonal norm temperatures. There have also been a number of Gas outages which is compounding the issue and feeding in to the forward curve. Withdrawals have been made from Rough storage at a time of the year when we may have been injecting in to storage.

Within the Power market there have also been a number of outages; this combined with colder temperatures and lower output for Wind generators has caused upward pressure on prices.