The United Kingdom will have enough energy to get through the 2023-2024 winter, Bloomberg reported, citing Business and Energy Secretary Grant Shapps. The country will make it possible thanks to increased supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and reined demand for it.
Grant Shapps is confident that the United Kingdom will be able to ensure an adequate gas supply to be in a good place for next winter.
“The markets have found ways round to deliver more LNG,” Shapps stated. “The question’s not — as people were saying at the beginning — will the lights go out?” but rather “what will the cost be? The market will solve it.”
Earlier, the Business and Energy Secretary vowed to find new fuel storage capacities. He believes that the country has a very good energy system and sees curbing power use and stimulating energy production as the way out of the tricky situation.
According to Bloomberg, the United Kingdom is facing the most difficult winter in 7 years. The energy industry is struggling to stay afloat despite a 70% decline in gas prices since August 2022. Nevertheless, those cuts together with the filling of gas storage facilities helped ease the energy crisis. Notably, the United Kingdom no longer imports LNG from Russia. The ban on Russian LNG came into effect on January 1, 2023.
The United Kingdom has less gas stockpiling capacity than any other country in Europe. Nevertheless, it does not mean its government can’t keep the energy situation under control. At the same time, the country is still dependent on energy imports. However, in 2022, that became increasingly challenging due to reduced supplies of Russian gas to the European Union and multiple outages of nuclear power plants in France.
