British Gas Made Even More Profit Because We Used More Gas...

It wouldn't work in the UK to go back to being a nationalised system. I'd rather pay a bit more for gas / electricity than have all the people working in utilities companies become unemployed.
 
Morba said:
The money should go to a company that is willing to invest in the future then, rather than to a company that could already safeguard their future if they wanted to.
By subsiding major companies on things like this we are just allowing them to take the public for mugs for even longer.
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yup, but thanks to having mp's with the iq's of house plants things wont change.
 
GAC said:
yup, but thanks to having mp's with the iq's of house plants things wont change.
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And aren't some of them linked in some way to some of the companies? Back handed pay offs and all sorts I'd imagine :(
 
Russinating said:
Go on...

Nobody has to be a British Gas customer.
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The alternative, non huge profit making from needless rises, company would be?

And there is the problem. They are all the same, all making the same sort of profits. Why? Because they all can.
If one of them said "we are gonna make half of what the other companies do per household" they would get a lot more customers and probably make more profit. Until another drops their prices significantly to compete.

At the moment none of them need to do that.
 
We can't cap profits as that will just kill all investment - imagine you are an investor, do you pick energy (unstable with capped profits) or something else?.

It's unrealistic to expect anything other than we are getting from the energy industry in it's current form - the purpose of private enterprise is profit, human need is always going to be secondary.

I'd nationalise the energy industry personally, along with any other industry in which the government has to the cover the systemic risk (public transportation, fuel, energy, healthcare, education, law enforcement are all similar in that the UK would grind to a halt without them).

Morba said:
The alternative, non huge profit making from needless rises, company would be?

And there is the problem. They are all the same, all making the same sort of profits. Why? Because they all can.
If one of them said "we are gonna make half of what the other companies do per household" they would get a lot more customers and probably make more profit. Until another drops their prices significantly to compete.

At the moment none of them need to do that.
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The profit margins on most customers are not big enough to enable that kind of price gap - running costs, wholesale gas costs & government commitments are pretty much the same across all of the big 6.

For about 40% of customers most of the energy companies are making a loss (With 20% of the customer base provided 80% of the profit) - people forgot that if they are a low consumer (anybody single who lives alone will fit this criteria) they are actually being subsidised by large families.
 
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Also lets not forget government policy doesn't help the consumer.

Did the powers that be really think the cost of reducing CO2 emissions would not be passed onto the consumer?
 
Morba said:
The alternative, non huge profit making from needless rises, company would be?

And there is the problem. They are all the same, all making the same sort of profits. Why? Because they all can.
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What do you want them to do? Not make profits?

£50 profit per household per year is measly.
 
Morba said:
It would make more sense that these companies, and the same goes for rail, were forced to pay for improvements and future projects out of their profits rather than from money from the government.
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But Centrica do invest in future projects, renewables, power stations, infrastructure etc.....look at their website.

SECURING SUSTAINABLE AND AFFORDABLE ENERGY SUPPLIES
• £2.7 billion invested in 2012
• Construction of £1.4 billion North Sea Cygnus gas field started, creating 4,000 UK jobs and producing gas for 1.5 million UK homes
• First power from Lincs offshore wind farm, will supply electricity for 200,000 UK homes; first production from three gas fields in last 12 months; York and Rhyl first gas expected in coming weeks
• Positive results from exploration drilling at Rodriguez and Whitehaven in early 2013, following lower levels of drilling success in 2012
• Commitments to secure gas and power for the UK totaling more than £50 billion


Also, people love to focus on just the profit figure and ignore the revenue/profit margin figures. Centrica's overall profit margin for 2012 was ~11%.....that's not exactly a ground breaking amount, it's pretty normal in fact (there's plenty of other companies with much higher profit margins).
 
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