Energy Policy
On 30 March, the French Parliament published a report entitled “D’enquête visant à établir les raisons de la perte de souveraineté et d’indépendance énergétique de la France” or “Inquiry aimed at establishing the reasons for the loss of sovereignty and energy independence of France”. [...]
My blog is 7 years old today! This past year has seen some interesting and unexpected developments for my business and my blog. The blog has been more widely read than ever, particularly my articles about Norway, one of which went genuinely viral on [...]
In May last year, the UK Government introduced a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies operating on the UK Continental Shelf (“UKCS”), in response to press stories about “excess” energy company profits. Regular readers will know my feelings about this [...]
For the past year Ofgem has been trying to address concerns around the financial resilience of energy suppliers after half of them went bankrupt in late 2021 following the rapid increase in wholesale prices. Ofgem has been strongly criticised for allowing suppliers to enter [...]
Last week the Government published its much anticipated Powering Up Britain strategy, along with several thousand pages of documentation. This followed a High Court case last year which found that policy to date was insufficiently detailed to deliver on the country’s statutory duty to [...]
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Energy Industries Club dinner on the subject of energy security…here is a copy of my remarks... Good evening everyone, I’m delighted to be here for the inaugural evening meeting of the Energy Industries [...]
Last year I warned repeatedly that Norway can not be expected to sit passively by while other countries drain its reservoirs and that it may well take steps to restrict exports. I drew attention to comments by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and [...]
Back in October, the Government put in place energy subsidies for households and businesses, designed to protect them from the impact of high energy prices. For households, the intention was to reduce the number of people that would be forced into fuel poverty by [...]
It’s always interesting at the start of the year to look back at what I was thinking this time last year. In my opening remarks I said: “I suspect that by the end of 2022 we will have finally moved on and by the [...]
This week the EU finally acted on gas prices by agreeing a cap. Under the “market correction mechanism” which is due to come into force on 15 February 2023 and last for one year, gas contracts traded on European exchanges could see their prices [...]