Gas prices in Britain surged to a new high yesterday as Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine intensified,5 Mar 2022 08:43
Gas prices in Britain surged to a new high yesterday as Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine intensified, increasing fears of disruption to supplies to Europe.
Benchmark UK prices topped 500p a therm for the first time, hitting highs of 508.8p a therm intra-day trading, and were still up 27 per cent at 486p per therm last night. That’s more than 12 times higher than a year ago, when gas was trading at less than 40p a therm.
Prices in mainland Europe also hit record highs amid fears of disruption to supplies from Russia, which accounts for about 40 per cent of Europe’s gas imports. Britain gets about 4 per cent of its gas from Russia through deliveries of liquefied natural gas, but prices are closely correlated to Europe’s because the two markets are linked by pipelines.
The rise in prices will feed through to consumer bills, which are already set to increase by a record 54 per cent from April 1 — based on an average gas price of 127p per therm. Analysts at Investec say that if wholesale gas prices stayed at present levels, bills for a typical household could rise to well over £3,000 a year from October, when the energy price cap is next due to be updated.