In the UK, the cost of natural gas futures quadrupled in 2021, rising from 52p per therm at the start of the year, to a staggering 230p. This equates to an increase of 342%. So, the difficulty that Bulb had in obtaining investors is hardly surprising. Indeed, for all energy providers, regardless of forward purchasing tactics and the hedging of risk these allow for, the market is unattractive. So, what is driving the unprecedented spike?

Global demand

Several factors have contributed to the surge in worldwide gas prices. But, perhaps the most significant has been the sheer rise in demand across the globe. As the largest consumers of energy in the world, Chinese activity plays a pivotal role in the economics of the energy markets, and China’s demand for gas has increased steadily since 2014. Furthermore, with their gas imports increasing by 16% in 2021, and forecasted to increase a further 11-13% in 2022, the uptick in demand has been significant. 

The impact of COVID-19

Another trigger for the increase has been the lifting of restrictions from COVID-19, which inevitably led to heightened activity in almost all geographies. Take the UK for example: the rise in economic activity in hospitality and manufacturing, for example, after restrictions were lifted during the summer led gas markets to hit record high prices, peaking at nearly 408p per therm in October 2021. Similarly, in the US, Asia and Europe, natural gas consumption increased by 8% compared to 2020.

Supply-side factors

However, increases in demand are not abnormal as demand for energy typically fluctuates seasonally. Instead, it is the combination of demand-side and supply-side factors that have resulted in energy prices rising so ferociously across the globe. Let’s consider the UK: most of its electricity comes from gas, yet despite this, just 1% of Europe’s gas reserves are stored in the UK. This lack of stored gas stems from the 2017 closing of Centrica’s gas storage facility (the largest in the UK), due to the costly nature of maintaining it and the lack of available government subsidies. The result? A heightened reliance on imports in the UK. Moreover, whilst most imports come from Norway, the country itself has been forced to curb supply, due to depleted gas reserves and low winds, among other factors.  

Finally, although the UK receives just 5% of its gas from Russia, Europe receives a third of its gas from Gazprom (the Russian state-owned entity). While Russia has fulfilled all gas export contracts it is party to, it has declined requests for additional gas during the winter period. Some have speculated this is part of an effort to put pressure on German regulators to approve its Nord 2 pipeline, while also coming at a time when political tension with Ukraine (whom are part of Russia’s current gas transit routes) is high. So, exports from Russia have not increased as had been hoped. Additionally, Russian exports into the spot market, which smaller domestic energy suppliers rely on, are still low. The culmination of these factors, among several others including an exceptionally cold European winter in 2020 eating through supplies, meant demand heavily outweighed supply, resulting in the quadrupling of gas prices.

An impossible industry for non ‘Big Six’ energy suppliers

Reflecting on Bulb’s recent collapse, there’s another factor that contributed to its demise and will continue to impact other energy providers: the price cap. In 2019, the UK energy regulator Ofgem introduced a cap that limited how much energy providers could charge customers. This is reviewed every six months, and currently sits at £1,277 per year. Whilst well-intentioned, the long break between reviews means the regulator is slow to react to macroeconomic changes and resultantly imposes a price cap that is out of sync with market conditions. Combined with rising energy prices, this means if providers purchase their resources now, they would be losing £500 per customer. With businesses being forced to operate at a loss, it’s no surprise that the widespread collapse of smaller companies, like Green Supplier Ltd and Avro Energy, has followed. Indeed, even the largest energy providers were unprofitable in 2020 (it was their hedging strategies that provided them with some security).  

The introduction of the price cap meant that even the largest energy providers were unprofitable in 2020

Extensive forward order practices allow the ‘Big Six’ to average out price changes across periods up to ten years, so, the larger providers are likely safe for now. And with the smallest of them (ScottishPower) having £260m in cash and cash equivalents , and the largest (EDF) having £2.25bn, they have a larger cushion than that of their smaller counterparts. However, in a marketplace comprised of between 45-60 energy providers (figures vary between sources), the collapse of 20+ smaller companies, and the predicted collapse of more, indicates there could be a dangerous compound effect. The typical administration process for energy suppliers in the UK sees larger companies obliged to take on the customers of those that have collapsed. This was shown recently when British Gas took on 35,000 combined customers previously served by Neon Reef and Social Energy. The fact that energy providers (including some of the ‘Big Six’) are currently turning customers away foreshadows potential danger. These providers face a possible scenario where they’re forced to take on new customers en masse. So, even the larger companies may be put under strain. 

How the industry got into this position: the regulatory landscape  

Given the situation the energy industry finds itself in, questions are inevitably being asked about how it has been regulated. In 2014, Ofgem enacted measures that lowered the UK energy industry’s barriers to entry. This aimed to introduce some positive competition into an otherwise closed off industry. It did this successfully, with the number of players increasing by some 500%. Yet, in their efforts to increase industry competitiveness, regulators became too laissez-faire in their approach. They granted licences to companies that weren’t financially fit to be energy suppliers, given the heavily fluctuating prices the industry sees. Indeed, a formal review found that of the companies granted licences, “few were profitable or had any prospect of becoming so.”

While the current industry strain is admittedly of an unprecedented nature, the shakiness of Ofgem’s regulating is ultimately reflected by their former chief-exec conceding that he had not imagined a scenario within which “the price cap was the cheapest tariff in the market.” The softened approach to scrutinising potential entrants is neither fair on the customers, nor the suppliers themselves who are walking into an industry they’re ill-equipped to survive in. Ofgem’s recent public hanging out to dry of those suppliers who had missed late payments on renewable energy subsidies, despite their own shortcomings, reflects something much larger: an industry where all stakeholders, be they customers, suppliers, regulators or the government, are suffering. Evidently, regulators would have been better off being more scrutinous of industry newcomers. While such measures have now been introduced, action was unfortunately taken too late to prevent the current crisis. 

Ofgem’s mismanagement of the industry cannot be downplayed

The combination of several demand and supply side factors, not restricted to those explored in this article, resulted in an unprecedented increase in gas prices, one so great that it was ultimately unmanageable for most industry players. While it was largely this increase in gas prices that led to an industry epidemic of company collapses in the UK, one contributing factor that cannot be downplayed is Ofgem’s mismanagement of the industry. And the fact that it’s the smaller providers that have suffered so far is an indictment of the measures they took to increase industry competitiveness. Furthermore, such is the scale of the crisis, and its contributory causes that the future of suppliers on a global scale is now thrown into question. Even the largest providers will be concerned about how the next few months play out. 

Read part III of this series to find out what the future looks like for the energy sector and how recent events will have a knock-on effect for consumers and other industries.