To think this is very morally wrong

[Lovelycupofcoffee]

So I read today that energy companies are making huge profits and some of their directors are getting paid huge bonuses. I find this absolutely disgusting when there are families choosing between paying electric bills or cutting back on feeding their family . Could the government not step in and shop this ? Come October it’s going to get worse but surely we shouldn’t have to be choosing between food or paying our electric bill. If these companies are making so much money why increase the standing charge for gas/ electric? There is something very wrong here.

Yes this. But people don't want it because... God knows why.

Nobody? Where is this fantasy wonderland economy?

You realise that it’s this magic money tree attitude that got us into this mess in the first place aka quantative easing. That why we have this inflation (even before Ukraine war started).

Nothing is produces for free. Therefore nobody paying for it is not an option.

The wholesale price of fuel is out of the government's hands. It is internationally agreed in order to ensure that the limited amount of fuel now available is carefully controlled and a availability ensured as far as possible. Look around you and you'll see that every country is in the same position.

That is not true. The energy companies are making record profits. They are profiteering.

Not sure I agree, that was more a case of a truly competitive market. If one supermarket put up its price to £3, another would undercut them, and another and so on to drive the price down.

Energy isn’t a proper market, pretty much everyone has no choice but to buy it so true price competition can’t exist.

Also the pasta shortage was a result of demand, not a supply side shortage like energy.

Different in France, our very close neighbour.

You are confusing the energy companies that we pay or bills to, with the big oil companies that supply it to them. It's BP, Shell etc who are making the massive profits. Not Ovo or EDF

I do understand that. That is why so many have collapsed.

I’m not God but I think the pollution and seismic events associated with fracking, and Fukushima might have something to do with why.

But those few that exist now have everyone’s business - even with small profit margins they will have massively increased turnover = more profit

@StepAwayFromGoogling Countries with a strong socialist democracy ethos consistently top almost every poll any country would want to be on. Communism isn’t the only alternative to unbridled, under regulated capitalism.

Because it’s easier to say ‘oh look at all those big bad companies taking all our money. Tax the bastards. Boo, boo, pass me my pitchfork’.

Rather than holding our politicians to account on legislating against fracking protests. Passing planning laws to accelerate nuclear power generation, and incentivizing big offshore wind.

Here’s an anecdote for you. It’s so batshit you couldn’t make it up. A company called Aker horizons is proposing a 10GW offsite wind farm off the coast of Shetlands. Yes that’s right, 10GW. It’s not a typo. The local MP is all for it. But the local luddites on Shetlands are protesting against it. Seriously. The best place in all of Europe to build a green energy initiative, and the locals are trying to block it. Go, figure.

Right, let’s all just dream up some energy. let’s just produce it with the power of imagination and rhetoric. Who needs real production facilities?

It's not the winter yet.

Many of us are in for a miserable winter. If we have another hard winter like 2018, many will die. And it will have been entirely avoidable.

Instead of giving this energy crisis the attention it deserves, Johnson et al are on holiday and refusing to hold an emergency meeting. Remember this moment.

If you do not understand the energy market, maybe better not to make it so obvious?

Usually said by people when their argument hits a dead end. Well done for being so predictable. Anyway, back to the grown up debate….

No protests as the Tories banned protests

Also worrying is our lack of food self suffiency. That is also going to get worse.

Morality and this Tory Government do not cohabit the same space. Haven't people seen enough to recognise that?
Johnson was chosen by the Tories to lead them despite being a known prolific liar, known to excess in every part of his private and public life. Surrounded by amoral mouthpieces like Lord Snooty aka Reece-Mogg, Pritti Patel (let's spend millions sending refugees to Rwanda), Truss (let's make policy up on the hoof and reverse it in minutes), Sunak (let's take money away from deprived areas to give to the more privileged). A party who parties during a pandemic, let's never forget that.
Weve got the most amoral government in modern times.

It is an issue. Maddening as each infrastructure project gets kiboshed

But the energy retailers aren’t making massive profits. Bulb went into government ownership because no one wanted it. In your analogy if the global cost of wheat had gone through the roof the supermarket would have raised prices or faced a loss. If some supermarkets also farmed wheat they would be making profits but on the global wheat market, not through supermarkets.

What did people expect when they keep voting in Conservative govts? I only have sympathy for people who didn't vote for them. They are all abhorrent but they don't hide who they are- they are doing exactly what it says on the tin.

BP made $9bn of profit in Q2 of this year but made a $20bn loss in Q1. So a net loss year to date of $11bn.

Centrica made a loss of £864m in H1.

The headlines rarely pick up on the actual statutory reported numbers though....

These companies are making most of their money atm from energy trading ie hedging. They bought the energy that they will sell to you this coming winter last year or the year before, basically betting on the forward price of power. Before the invasion of Ukraine. When prices come back down their profits will adjust accordingly. You could call this profiteering or you could say it's the effect of good hedging/luck. They make more money as more customers move onto standard variable tariffs once their fixed deals expire.

The smaller companies - those that have been going bust - haven't had the financial means to hedge far enough in advance and customers on fixed tariffs are paying less than the cost of energy at the moment, hence those companies collapsing. And the customers being taken on my other more stable suppliers who actually have balance sheets...

Those with upstream assets will be paying 65% tax on the profits of those assets for the next few years under the EPL (windfall tax).

@Cripes why are you selectively posting facts?

"BP has reported its best first-quarter profit in more than a decade, driven by high oil and gas prices as well as strong refining margins, despite a larger write down on assets in Russia.
The energy giant’s underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, stood at $6.2bn for Q1 2022, up from $2.6bn a year ago.
For the first quarter, ended 31 March, BP reported a loss attributable to shareholders of $20.4bn, as against a profit of $4.66bn for the Q1 2021. This included a $25.5bn write-down from exiting Russia."

www.offshore-technology.com/news/bp-q1-profit-russia-exit/#:~:text=For%20the%20first%20quarter%2C%20ended,bn%20for%20the%20Q1%202021.