PeteBrant

BBC NEWS | Business | British Gas owner warns on profit

Man, must be a nightmare if you are a British Gas shareholer Quite possbility that your Dividends will be less than last year.

Try not to worry too much though. They have assured you that any riging costs are going to be passed to the cosumer, thereby protecting profits. Phew, thank god for that.

I mean obviously this will mean that there will be some people that cannot afford the luxury of heat and hot water and cooking, but hey, not your problem - And like British Gas said last time, really, its up to the tax payer to cover people that can't afford it.

As long as Centrica make a nice tidy profit, that's all that matters.





Privatising utilities was questionable at the time. But, there is no doubt it gave the country and injeciton of cash it desperatly desperatly needed at the time. And it made a lot of people a lot of money. People that ordinarily wouldn't have made money.

But by Christ are we reaping what we sew now. It will never ever happen, but a not for profit nationalised Gas provider sounds quite nice about now.

stilover

Profits have to rise year on year.

That's the law.

lozgti

Agreed re not for profit.

What the hell is going on in this country at the moment?

Sonic'

And in the papers last week it was said that Gas & Electricity costs will be going up by 40% shortly

I posted this the other week that I got a letter saying that they are sorry but they are having to put the costs up again, this was the week they announced so many million profit, if they had too just 1 million less profit they wouldnt have to increase everyones bills

But now they are going to do it again, fecking *******s

unclebuck

UK household energy bills face unprecedented rise this year - Telegraph

"The average energy bill for a British household could rise by as much as 46pc this year, market experts warned today."

It's the pensioners and low waged I feel for - the latter having had their income tax recently doubled by Nu Labour.

Never mind though, they can still find Billions of hard working peoples' Taxes to give away in 'aid' to the third world.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Ho hum............energy price rises of up to 46%, fuel up by around 30% or more and Lying Labour will STILL insist that inflation is 2.5%

Alcazar

mal_howarth

How much are the MP's asking for a pay rise ? maybe thats the true inflation figure

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

They say 46 percent then we feel lucky if it only goes up 25%, the do it with council tax as well.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

When is it going to stop, everything is bloody going up, fuel, food, mortgage, tax etc etc, we are now at the mercy of the Russians for Gas, Arabs for Oil and have sold everything we used to own, I think we may have backed ourselves into a corner.

I kind of think it was the seventies, Labour and the Unions that fooked it, 3 days weeks, crap being produced, Maggie gets in, flogs everything to bail us out, greed is good etc, everything then gets flogged, now we dont own anything, even the energy companies are foreign owned, how can that be good, people in another country getting rich by cranking up prices, just cos they can !

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

We need to invade invade invade All those former colonies.

Not going to happen and I can't see this country recovering as we have nothing left to sell of and bail ourselves out this time. We will probably end up a second rate country like Argentina.

MattW

My Gas/Elec just gone up to £140 per month

Suresh

Privatisation of utilities was a big mistake . Railways and Water companies have been especially disastrous as the shareholders have taken priority above investment. Nationalise at a price the government chooses. If the shareholders get burned then so be it.

PeteBrant

Unfortunatly it's never going to happen

You can almost forgive the rail companies making a profit. But to profit from the basic requirement for warmth and food is something I struggle more with.

To then put up prices to protect those profits, is even more difficult to swallow.

stilover

Why's that?

Government give the Railway companies Billions every year. Network rail was the worse offender. Billions of Tax payers money given to a private company to run the railway system. They then boast of Profits for it's share holders. All that profit is Tax payers money.

Gas is one of the worse for creaming money from the British. Centrica (French owned) charge there own people in France a fraction of what they charge the British for the same Gas.

Most British companies have been sold to foreign companies. We are powerless now. They can charge us the earth, while laughing all the way to the bank.

They keep banging on about how wind farms are the answer to our energy crisis. They look bl00dy awfull, and 9 times out of ten when you see them, they're not even turning.

We are an island surounded by water. The tied is constant and very powerful, maybe if investment was put into wave energy systems we'd be better off. Bonus would be they'd be out of site under the water and producing energy all day long. No need for a windy day to power the windmills.

PeteBrant

Network Rail is a slightly unique case. It is a "not for dividend" company. All the profits go back into the railways and are not distributed to shareholders in dividends

It's not a private company in the same was the rail operators are.

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

And soon labour looks set to sell off our 35% stake in British energy for a quick buck.

jono_pryor11

With out a doubt privatisation of the energy companies was a good thing!

Before we had a "gold plated" system and everyone was paying much more relatively because of this. With the private system and market we have in the UK we get very close to the optimum cost as in order to be "Selected" under the NETTA (or BETTA can remember which is the current arrangement) arrangements producers must bid close to their marginal costs and also due to their long term bilateral contracts. The system we have is not perfect but its much better than a cost plus private system.

I agree that its shocking that prices are going up so much, but its due to the massive rush we had back in the late 80's and early 90's for OCGT's and CCGT's which has lead to a huge amount of gas power stations on the network. As gas price has jacked up lots recently its not surprising the cost to us is going up. We're doubly shafted as we now have to import a large proportion as north sea production is reducing and will do considerably over the next 20 years.

Although i dont agree with the profits the companies are making, they are businesses and have to achieve a return. In terms of % they are low compared to many other sectors. If companies dont make enough of a return they wont re-invest in the industry and will not build any new power stations. If they dont do that we'll end up like South Africa! If a company is seen to make excessive profits then OFGEM will step in and beat them with a bit policy stick. OFGEM also tightens up things frequently squeezing the profit margins of the companies and forcing them to become more efficient.

The quicker everyone wakes up and realises we need to have nuclear power the better. Look at France, they have the cheapest electricity in Europe. Selling of British energy is a mistake, but due to the complete lack of funding / support of the nuclear industry under labour there are very little expertise left in the uk industry. We have to get some of the original engineers back from retirement to pull us out the sh*t ffs.

The other option is renewable generation, but nothing on the market at present is viable and is completely incompatible with the current market arrangements and our energy demands. Vote nuclear.

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

Think yourself lucky you dont use oil for heating - prices went up from around £130 for 500l to £280 - and that was in the space of about 4 months !