{"id":447,"date":"2018-03-01T15:33:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T14:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=447"},"modified":"2018-03-01T15:34:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T14:34:33","slug":"uk-running-out-of-gas-national-grid-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=447","title":{"rendered":"UK running out of gas, National Grid warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/nationalgrid\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">National Grid<\/a>\u00a0has issued a warning that the UK will not have enough gas to meet demand on Thursday, as temperatures plummeted and imports were hit by outages.<\/p>\n<p>The government said households should not notice any disruption to their supply or any increase in energy bills because suppliers such as British\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/gas\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Gas<\/a>\u00a0buy energy much further ahead. Energy minister Claire Perry said people should cook and use their heating as they would normally.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element-rich-link--tag element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link-tag\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-tag\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more-text\">\u00a0But experts said there was a strong chance that industrial users could experience interruptions to their gas supply.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Within-day\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2018\/feb\/28\/wholesale-gas-prices-more-than-double-as-freeze-drives-demand\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">wholesale gas prices soared<\/a>\u00a074% to 200p per therm after the formal deficit warning, which acts as a call to suppliers to bring forward more gas. It is the first time such an alert has been issued\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2010\/jan\/11\/uk-gas-reserves-imports-fail\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">since 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>By lunchtime on Thursday the price had spiked even higher, hitting a high of 275p per therm at one point.<\/p>\n<p>National Grid\u2019s\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/mip-prod-web.azurewebsites.net\/PrevailingView\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">forecast for the day<\/a>\u00a0initially showed a shortfall across the day of 49.5m cubic metres (mcm) below the country\u2019s projected need of 395.7mcm, which would normally be around 300mcm at this time of year. The gas deficit warning aims to fill the gap, which has since narrowed to 16.5mcm.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are in communication with industry partners and are closely monitoring the situation,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n<p>Widespread snow and temperatures of -7.8C due to the \u201c<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/live\/2018\/mar\/01\/storm-emma-beast-from-the-east-snow-uk-live\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Beast from the East\u201d and Storm Emma<\/a>\u00a0have prompted consumers to fire up their heating. Public health authorities recommend an indoor temperature of 18C.<\/p>\n<p>As a result gas demand is at a five-year high, according to market watchers S&amp;P Global Platts.<\/p>\n<p>Simon Wood, a gas analyst at the group, said: \u201cThere\u2019s a strong chance you\u2019ll see some interruptions for industrial users to balance the system.\u201d Big energy users such as car manufacturers have supply contracts which can be interrupted in return for lower prices.<\/p>\n<p>The situation has been compounded by several outages to supply, which can experience problems in very cold weather. There have been problems with a pipeline to the Netherlands, reductions in gas flows from Norway and technical issues at facilities in the UK, including the North Morecambe Barrow terminal.<\/p>\n<p>The crunch is also the UK\u2019s first major energy security test since\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2017\/jun\/20\/uk-gas-storage-prices-rough-british-gas-centrica\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">the country\u2019s biggest gas storage facility was closed by Centrica last year<\/a>. The Rough site in the North Sea had accounted for 70% of the UK\u2019s gas storage.<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--inline1\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--inline ad-slot--inline1 ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot inline1\" data-name=\"inline1\" data-mobile=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|fluid\" data-desktop=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|620,1|620,350|fluid\" data-google-query-id=\"CIDXzMGry9kCFdQD0wodqhkDBQ\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/59666047\/theguardian.com\/business\/article\/ng_0__container__\" class=\"ad-slot__content\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The UK is currently drawing on stores of gas dotted around the country, and liquified natural gas at the Isle of Grain in Kent and Dragon in South Hook, Wales.<\/p>\n<p>Gas storage is currently at the lowest level since records began in 2006, primarily because of the closure of Rough. The UK currently has around 0.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas stocks out of a total capacity of 1.3bcm. That total used to stand at 4.5bcm.<\/p>\n<p>Wood said that ensuring there is enough gas in the next few days would be \u201ctouch and go\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Normally, energy demand dips at the weekend but that effect will be limited this Saturday and Sunday because the cold temperatures keep more people indoors and bump up household demand.<\/p>\n<p>One analyst said that while this week\u2019s short-term problem had been caused by a \u201cperfect storm\u201d of unrelated issues, the government has failed to take long-term action on gas supplies and cut demand by encouraging energy-efficient homes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe UK is largely isolated in its dependency on gas, with a huge over-reliance in the power and heating sectors. Experts have long warned about putting too many eggs in the same basket, with events such as today the undesirable outcome,\u201d said Dr Jonathan Marshall, energy analyst at the ECIU thinktank.<\/p>\n<p>The government is due to meet an alliance of energy intensive industry groups and trade unions after they wrote to the business secretary, Greg Clark, last November demanding an inquiry on gas storage and supply.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve had the Forties [pipeline] disruption [in December], other events in January and February. We envisage the frequency of these will increase, and this will have impact on gas prices. This requires an inquiry,\u201d said Clive Moffatt, speaking for the group, whose members include ceramics and paper firms.<\/p>\n<p>The shale industry said today\u2019s deficit warning showed the UK\u2019s need for homegrown gas supplies extracted by fracking.<\/p>\n<p>The jump in gas prices is much higher than the one in December after\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" draggable=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2017\/dec\/12\/oil-price-hits-30-month-high-north-sea-ineos-pipeline-closure\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">a major North Sea pipeline was closed for repairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The high price of gas, which is expected to last for the rest of the week, has also had an impact on electricity supplies, leading to a surge of dirty coal power.<\/p>\n<p>The amount of electricity generated from oil in February was up 81% on January, and over the last seven days more than a fifth of power came from coal,\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mygridgb.co.uk\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">according to MyGridGB<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Power prices, which would usually be around\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.energy-uk.org.uk\/publication.html?task=file.download&amp;id=6559\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">\u00a345-50 per megawatt hour at this time of year<\/a>, have\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bmreports.com\/bmrs\/?q=balancing\/systemsellbuyprices\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">spiked at an astronomical \u00a3990 per mWh\u00a0<\/a>on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2018\/mar\/01\/uk-is-running-out-of-gas-national-grid-warns-freezing-weather<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Grid\u00a0has issued a warning that the UK will not have enough gas to meet demand on Thursday, as temperatures plummeted and imports were hit by outages. The government said households should not notice any disruption to their supply or any increase in energy bills because suppliers such as British\u00a0Gas\u00a0buy energy much further ahead. Energy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}