As gas prices fall for the gas companies who will start to reduces prices first and w

standinman2009

Anyone who watched Watchdog this week will have seen a report ,that the gas prices ,the suppliers pay had fallen dramatically.
Has anyone any idea ,if and when the reductions will be passed back to us ,or won't they ???

chris1973

my vote goes to 'non of the above'

There will always be some excuse given for not lowering prices, no matter how much the wholesale price falls.

Besides, they can't disappoint all of those who have locked into fixed tariffs

victor2

If I had any spare cash after my utility bills, I'd put it on the prices not falling.:)
Not seeking to defend the utility companies in any way, but it from the graphs on Watchdog it looked like they were comparing current wholesale prices to what they were at their peak in 2008, when the same graph showed customer charges as being well below the wholesale prices.
The overall concept was good, but I felt they achieved a little sensationalism by using the extreme figures for wholesale costs and saying how much the cost to the utility companies had fallen since then, without mentioning that the same utility companies must have been selling at a loss if they were buying at the prices their graph showed.
It came over to me as little more than a TV stunt and I soon lost interest.

DUTR

standinman2009 wrote: »

Anyone who watched Watchdog this week will have seen a report ,that the gas prices ,the suppliers pay had fallen dramatically.
Has anyone any idea ,if and when the reductions will be passed back to us ,or won't they ???

As the other replies, but if it does come down, it won't be until spring, most of the usage is between november and march.

DTDfanBoy

Well after spending a couple of hours comparing tarrifs this afternoon, I'll go the other way and say they will be lowered

Four out of the five lowest priced tarrifs I was shown on various comparison websites were fixed, and with the knowledge that energy companies always put their bottom line before customers, I don't imagine they would be be offering fixed tarrifs at a lower price point that their others if there was any likelyhood of prices increasing in the near future.

That said I can't see them lowering prices until they absolutely have to :mad:

bengasman

They will come up with a lot of excuses about how long it takes for the wholesale price to work through, and the prices won't to down significantly until spring.

Biketrials08

bengasman wrote: »

They will come up with a lot of excuses about how long it takes for the wholesale price to work through, and the prices won't to down significantly until spring.

Really they're not excuses, they do buy quite a long way in advance. As for falling gas prices, well not sure where this idea has come from, been strong for many months now. If you want to have an idea where gas prices may go then keep an eye on Brent oil as they are closely linked.

JSR

victor2 wrote: »

without mentioning that the same utility companies must have been selling at a loss if they were buying at the prices their graph showed.

I noticed that, too. They also said that wholesale prices were currently at a three year high. So although they went down, they've now gone back up.

The other graph showing that retail prices from the "Big 6" tracked each other quite closely was interpreted as evidence of an uncompetitive market. Yet this is exactly the kind of graph you would expect to see in a competitive market! If all the companies are fighting for customers and charging the lowest price they can then all their prices will be similar. You're not going to have some company charging higher prices than the others for the hell of it.

macman

I'm sure that all the big players will already have purchased their forward contracts to take them through next winter by now. It's only the small sellers (less than 10% of the market) who rely on shorter term or spot deals.

Pincher

I'm hoping that they didn't buy forward contract for all the consumption, so there is some free play for the variable rate tariffs.

It also means SaveOnline 9 doesn't need to go up this winter. Hurrah!

Pincher

I want the energy traders to see a double dip recession, so they dump forward contracts, which drives prices lower and lower for the 18 months duration. Hopefully, some of them go bankrupt, have to sell their homes, Lambourghini and their trophy wives leave them with the chauffeur.

I want the carnage to continue until October, and it is possible to buy contracts for November 2011 up to April 2013. The bottom scraping forward and spot prices mean there is now public outcry for tariff price reduction. FixOnline 10 comes out at a historic low of £700 annual for medium user, expiring 1st May 2013. The utilities will strictly enforce the exit penalty on earlier high fixed rate tariffs in the ensuing exodus.

So, everybody chant: "Double Dip, Double Dip, gotta have a Double Dip", (Hint: Harry Enfield)