MSE News: British Gas warns of energy price rises

tinkle

What is the Jubilee extension?

alanq

Why are gas prices expected to go up when a glut has been reported and the US has more than it knows what to do with?
http://news.yahoo.com/natural-gas-glut-means-drilling-120019501.html

alanq

tinkle wrote: »

What is the Jubilee extension?

Relax! Festivities celebrating Her Majesty's long reign are not to be prolonged for another year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_Line_Extension

Terrylw1

alanq wrote: »

Why are gas prices expected to go up when a glut has been reported and the US has more than it knows what to do with?
http://news.yahoo.com/natural-gas-glut-means-drilling-120019501.html

Because every time there is price increase, all everyone talks about is availability and wholesale price. There are massive issues with efficiency in these companies, with such an article on MSE a week or ago.

Until more recently, these companies were not properly reconciling what they bill you against what the bought. Now they've had a lot of media criticism, they are starting to look at waste prevention, but they are many years behind the manufacturing sector.

MillicentBystander

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Really?

So, councils, NHS, etc don't have expensive management and don't bring in expensive consultants?

IT systems, so you didn't know the utility companies were still using the systems they were during the last 30 years of nationalisation? Do you also believe that they would never upgrade to new technology? Do you think other public services continue with obsolete systems when they can upgrade to more efficient systems? So, you also don't believe the public sector doesn't upgrade its programming languages yo stick with times, especially since Microsoft force them to upgrade by pulling software support on older products.

Let's not forget all those civil servant pay grades all the staff were on. You know, these ones where the post boy gets the same salary as his manager would in the private sector.

The issue I had with nationalisation is the level of knowledge the office based people had. These are the people tat shaped the business and industry prior to deregulation and the minute it went through, accuracy , efficiency and just having a clue just seemed to end and everyone spends years playing catch up. The industry is largely a mess due to this.

Regulator wise, very true...but the government could do something about that if they really wanted to. Its a well known fact that the people employed at senior levels in regulatory bodies have a habit of hopping in and out if supplier/distributor positions.

My point was that our present system basically involves lots of unecessary duplication/expense (the cost of switching punters is a good example of this plus the kickbacks they hand over to the parasitic switching sites). Now, if this led to a truly competitive market then I'm sure we would be happy to accept it. It doesn't.

Terrylw1

MillicentBystander wrote: »

My point was that our present system basically involves lots of unecessary duplication/expense (the cost of switching punters is a good example of this plus the kickbacks they hand over to the parasitic switching sites). Now, if this led to a truly competitive market then I'm sure we would be happy to accept it. It doesn't.

Got to agree in that case then! Pricing complexity being another big confusing pain.

Definitely not competitive. The bigger suppliers just went around buying up entire companies instead of competing. The original idea of loads of ex regional suppliers died within a few years as the so called regulators and monopolies & mergers let them reduce the number of competitors. I'm sure if they s was stopped, it would be a bit different and new participants would be able to enter and compete more easily.

Its just that nowadays its more external but back in the days of nationalisation, it was all paper moving from one desk to another instead of a process that goes external. Its never been proved it was better then in terms of process.