Gas Prices Likely To Rise - Tough Road Ahead |
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Thu, 19 May 2005 19:45
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Consumers have a tough road ahead and there seems to be no way out, with the Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) signaling that household gas prices are likely to be hiked. It will however not be “just a small hike” for the Perth based utility service provider, further expressed that costs of wholesale gas will increase two fold.
This rise expected to take place in Winter 2005 – 2006 will be cause major blow as the group has already elevated prices by almost 9.1% just two months back, with an objective to be at par with the rivals.
The only solace to the consumers, as expressed by Ian Marchant Chief Executive of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), is that there will be no electricity price rise at least until the start of 2006. He also said that the group was accoladed with new accounts and most of the clients are single energy gas customers of Centrica wanting to opt for dual fuels with SSE.
What is really significant is that the group can boast of a strong client base of 850,000 customers, of which almost 300,000 come via the acquisition of Atlantic Electric and Gas.
| The pre-tax profits having been risen to 17.2%, about £715m, the shareholders of SSE will enjoy dividend hike of 12.7 percent to 42.5p a share. Besides the group also guaranteed the investors at least 4 per cent growth next year. This is just the beginning as the group is all set to give 50 free shares to its employee comprising of 10,900 workers, as an acknowledgement of the efforts put by them and also enable their participation in the share incentive programme.
On one side where the turnover figures, clientele and the dividends bring immense delight and motivation, the prolonged delay in processing planning applications for the wind farms and the hydro plant at Scotland results in incessant frustration.
“UK government in their endeavor to generate 10 percent of the energy from renewable resources will have to take a step, for a mere sanction and processing which takes less than a year has already crossed two years”, without any concrete results, is what the chief Executive of SSE strongly expresses.
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