A while ago the gas companies justified a price increase by saying that the price of gas tracks the price of petrol, at the moment we are paying £1.29 for petrol as the cost of fuel has come down will gas also come down or are they just rip off artists.
I don't think it's that simple because if you burn gas, you tend to have a contract where you pay a fixed price for a while, whereas the price can change every time you fill up at the petrol station. The gas and electricity suppliers have to buy future supplies rather than do it on a day to day basis. Also, different fuels vary in price depending on weather and time of year - diesel is closer to heating oil and gets more expensive in winter I think. I tried to make sense of some of the stats here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...8/6658-decc-fossil-fuel-price-projections.pdf But it is not straightforward. I use heating oil myself, and whilst it has become much more expensive over recet years (in line with crude oil) I quite like the fact that I can simply phone around for the best price when I am running low, or even use a local buying consortium to get a bit of a discount. I wish I had a gas connection though. There are two things which seem to be getting in the way of a rational national debate here: - We are not paying significantly more than other Europeans (less than most of them I think). - Even taking away what may be exagerated "Climate Change" aspects, we cannot escape the fact that a growing population of people are using up fossil fuels like gas at an alarming rate. It seems hard to believe that I can remember seeing my Mum's cooker adapted for "North Sea Gas" back in the late 60s (I'd guess) and we have now used most of it up already. It's all going to get very painful for much of the world's population when we consider that even without tax, the price of products like diesel must now be way above what they can afford (try paying even 50p a litre if you work for $1 a day...).
