UK gas prices surge by 25% overnight after strikes in Qatar – UK Times

The price of UK natural gas has surged by almost a quarter following the latest attacks by Iran on a gas hub in Qatar, heightening fears about major disruption to global supplies.

Over the past few days, natural gas futures – contracts for buying the commodity in the coming months – have been trading at between 125 and 132 pence per Therm (a unit of heat energy), but slowly rose on Wednesday to close at around 140p.

As trading hours opening on Thursday, this rocketed to 174p in response to the most recent events, an increase of 24 per cent, before quickly tailing back slightly to 169 as of 8am GMT.

Britain imports a significant percentage of its natural gas and, following a cold winter, Europe is expected to have lower reserves than usual.

The Common Wealth thinktank have released a report suggesting UK household energy bills could go down by £200 if gas was no longer used to set pricing in the way it is now.

Qatar said on Thursday that Iranian missile attacks had hit its liquified natural gas field Ras Laffan, “causing sizeable fires and extensive further damage”. This followed reports that Israel launched an attack against Iran’s South Pars gas field.

This followed reports that Israel launched an attack against Iran’s South Pars gas field.

US President Donald Trump said he “knew nothing” of Israel’s strike and that he did not want to authorise “this level of violence and destruction”. But he also pledged to “massively blow up the entirety” of Iran’s South Pars gas field if the nation attacks Qatar’s facilities again.

Qatar’s state-backed energy company Qatar Energy had halted production of liquefied natural gas at its sites at the beginning of the month because of attacks on its facilities.

This story is being updated

Additional reporting by PA