The company’s formula for success is astonishingly simple – it sold oil at much higher prices, compensating for losses in its other businesses.
Oil prices at an average of $109 per barrel, up from $88 per barrel the previous year, led to Shell to announce profits of £18.1 billion in 2011.
The controversial new method of extracting gas by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of rocks deep below the Earth’s surface is already covered by existing water and drilling regulations, and no new rules are needed until the technology reaches a commercial scale, the report says.
An article in The Guardian today notes that there are already four different highly complex regulatory frameworks that apply to shale gas. Here they are, with links to the official pages:
Summary of 2011 energy price rises compared to early 2012 price cuts
All of the largest players in the energy market have now cut their standard domestic tariffs to some extent, but all of them have made reductions that amount to a fraction of the price rises they made in the latter part of 2011.
The reductions have been in the 4-6% region, and only on electricity or gas, when the price rises were mostly around 10-20% and affected both products in all cases.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is responsible for overseeing government expenditures to ensure that they work in the public interest. The Smart Meter rollout is expected to cost £11.7 billion, and the PAC has published a set of 6 conclusions and recommendations that are summarised at the bottom of this page.
The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said:
“The idea of smart electricity and gas meters is a good one, but [the installation programme] is both challenging and subject to significant uncertainty.
Consumers will benefit from smart meters only if they understand the opportunity to reduce their energy bills and change their behaviour… Otherwise, the only people who will benefit are the energy suppliers.
Dial meters like this one will be replaced by Smart Meters with digital displays, but is forcing them on consumers too much?
As we reported back in March last year, the DECC has already set out its plans for a nationwide smart meter rollout during the years 2014 – 2019, calling it “a crucial step in delivering the UK’s energy security and low carbon future”.
Currently we are in the ‘foundation stage’, where domestic consumers and businesses have to choose to install a smart meter, with the costs of installation and hardware built in to their bills or paid for upfront. However, the government is planning a forced ‘mass rollout’ from 2014 – the proposed second stage.
Germany once had the biggest solar industry in the world, providing around 150,000 jobs by 2010, but that bubble seems to be starting to burst, as demand for solar technology drops, government subsidies are cut and competition from cheaper Asian competitors has increased.
According to Reuters, new incentives brought in by the coalition of Social Democrats and Greens a decade ago turned Germany into the biggest producer of solar panels in the world within a few years, but many of the start-ups it spawned that quickly became global leaders in the solar industry have now gone belly up.
It seems at first glance to be the perfect solution to an ever-growing problem. Like the sun, the wind never ‘runs out’, and each turbine we build in the UK provides a little bit more energy to meet our needs.
Unfortunately, the situation is a little more complex than that.
In the UK, we already have about 3,500 wind turbines that generate 1-2% of our electricity. Energy & Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne recently announced plans for the future of Britain’s energy security. To the dismay of many they didn’t include shale gas, but instead he favours a mixture of nuclear and wind turbines – 32,000 of them to be precise.
A week ago it looked likely that talks would fall apart as they did in Copenhagen , seemingly with China, India and the US all at loggerheads over signing the new climate change treaty, Kyoto II.
However, agreement was eventually lashed out in the early hours when a “huddle” including female ministers representing Europe and India was formed as a last-ditch attempt to get a deal done.
Annex B Countries are the developed nations of the world. Source: Wikipedia commons
With global carbon emissions higher than ever before, the UNFCCC is pushing hard for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, but the two fastest growing economies in the world do not seem keen to agree to legally binding targets to reduce their carbon emissions.
The current situation is that the US won’t even start to discuss anything unless China and India both agree to sign up to the same legally binding emissions targets as everyone else. India is outright refusing to agree to anything that damages its economic growth, and China is unlikely to play ball if India does not, so essentially we have a stalemate situation.
Ofgem are continuing their review of the business energy markets this week, proposing major changes for the business utilities industry.
The new measures include improved standards of conduct for suppliers, more protection for small businesses, more protection for businesses using a broker, and investigating supplier conduct during the switching process.
Utilities Savings has worked to a strict Code of Practice since October 2009. We fully welcome this news, having taken part in the consultation by Ofgem earlier this year.
© 2012 Utilities Savings Ltd.
Company registered in England No. 5855956
Business Electricity & Gas Consultants in Barnet, Hertfordshire
Fully accredited members of the Utilities Intermediaries Association
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