UK has enough gas says No 10 after storage warning

The UK has enough gas to meet winter demand, the government has said, after British Gas owner-Centrica warned about "concerningly low" storage.

Centrica, which owns the country's largest gas storage facility, said the UK "has less than a week of gas demand in store" due to the colder-than-usual weather.

The government said it monitors energy levels and says it has "all tools" at its disposal "if needed to secure our supply".

The UK can buy more supplies from Continental Europe if required.

Centrica said that the amount of gas in UK storage facilities were currently about half full.

It comes during freezing conditions in the UK, but the Met Office has said Friday will see "the start of a change to our weather", and it is forecast to get milder next week.

Given household energy prices are currently capped until the end of March, any shortage would be very unlikely to affect consumer bills, Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight, told the BBC.

If there was a short-term spike in wholesale prices, this could affect some business customers, he said.

However, the weather in the UK is forecast to get milder from next Tuesday, so a spike may not happen, he said.

Wholesale prices are currently lower than the beginning of the year.

Gas inventory levels have come under pressure from the cold weather conditions and the end of Russian gas pipeline supplies through Ukraine at the end of last month.

Britain has relatively little capacity to store gas, but is has more than it did compared with a few years ago.

About half of the capacity it has is at Centrica's Rough facility off the coast of East Yorkshire.

This was closed in 2017, but then partly reopened in October 2022 following the energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

There is also liquid natural gas storage at three terminals, and other smaller facilities across the country.

If the UK needed more gas, traders would have access to EU stocks, provided they paid the right price.

Centrica wants to invest £2bn in the Rough facility, so it can use it to store hydrogen as the UK starts to burn less natural gas as part of green targets.

It has been pushing the government to say hydrogen will be part of the UK energy mix in the future to justify that investment.