Brendon Boshell

@JohnRushforth1 @RobertJenrick We were a net exporter in 1981.

@RobertJenrick £100bn to Norway 🙄, a nice round number with zero nuance. We import gas on global markets, prices spike globally, and somehow that’s all down to UK licensing policy?

Britain has paid Norway over £100 billion for gas since 2021. For gas they’re drilling in the North Sea, the same sea Ed Miliband has banned new drilling in on the British side. Madness.

I can't believe the government spent £40 million on the fuel finder service, and it doesn't even come with a user interface.

THREAD: Cherise Doyley was in her 12th hour of contractions at the hospital when a tablet was brought to her bedside. On the screen was a Zoom call with a judge and several lawyers and doctors. She was in court, a nurse told her. The reason? For failing to agree to a C-section.

Exclusive from @oliver_wright Ministers are examining plans to ration petrol and diesel supplies at the pump if the conflict in the Middle East continues to restrict the supply of oil to the UK. Government figures show that the country has less than 900,000 tonnes of petrol in storage - 10 per cent less than a year ago and about 26 days’ supply at normal demand levels Although ministers insist in private that the country currently has adequate reserves to avoid rationing, senior government sources admit that “demand constraint measures” could become necessary if significant disruption to oil supply continues Ministers already have emergency powers under the Energy Act which they can use to control supply and demand of petrol products during severe disruptions. These were last used in 2000 when hauliers blockaded fuel depots to protest at rising prices, leading to nationwide petrol shortages. The plans would allow the government to cap the amount of fuel motorists can buy at any one time and designate certain petrol stations as hubs that would only serve emergency and critical service vehicles. Diesel sales could be restricted to commercial vehicles involved in the delivery of key supply chains, such as food and health One source said that although the need to implement the plans were “some way off” there was growing concern that disruption to supplies could last longer than had previously been expected. Industry experts believe that even if the Strait of Hormuz were to reopen tomorrow it could take up to six months for normal supplies to resume. thetimes.com/article/832f7c…

Cursed that the BBC's main piece on government borrowing rising frames it as bad bc it impacts the government's ability to subsidise energy bills. 1) It's an important story regardless of Iran. 2) If you judge things by their impact on govt's ability to subsidise, it inevitably slants your coverage. Cost of living is important, but it can't be the only frame a serious news outlet uses to analyse the world.

NEW: In a letter to employees, United CEO Scott Kirby says the airline is prepping for oil to hit $175/barrel & “doesn't get back down to $100/barrel until the end of 2027.” United is shaving 3% of off-peak flights - “think redeyes, Tues/Wed/Sat flying” - this spring & summer.

World over, borrowing costs are rising - but UK has highest of any G7 economy as we're seen to be most exposed.

BLIMEY. After disappointing borrowing numbers and the Bank of England’s hawkish tilt yesterday 10 year gilt yields reached highest levels since 2008 this morning above 4.9%… and possibly heading for 5%. This is rather delicate. The market judges the UK to be energy inflation prone, and somewhat political uncertainty prone too. UK political economy is sending messages right now… eg will the state always step in, in every circumstance now to stop energy bills rising for everyone, even in a generalised energy shock? See the Cornwall Energy projection of a possible £300 annual increase in energy cap typical bills. The IEA is about to advise the world on potential demand management solutions to help (of the sort Germany effected in 2022, which were deemed politically impossible in the UK). Across UK politics can there be reasoned conversations about these things? If the Gulf crisis continues all this will come to ahead in May, when the new energy price cap is set, in the middle of the aftermath of the May local elections, at a time when whispers emerge from leadership rivals of a looser relationship with fiscal prudence. As it happens, my sense is that the Treasury is firmly planning for a far more targeted offering for any support, IF needed, using data that was not available in 2022. The internal view is that many billions of pounds of Liz Truss’ universal £42 billion energy price guarantee scheme were wasted on rich households and on heating the air outside our badly insulated homes too. On top of that the market reaction to the Bank of England’s change of direction was somewhat overdone, as the Governor’s interview by me confirmed, as he told the MPC at the meeting, raising interest rates in the UK is not going to unblock the Strait of Hormuz… that said, some city economists are now saying we could get a rate rise next month, and markets imply three this year. Let’s see. These things could all change with one Truth Social post. There is some time here. We are less than a third of the way through the observation window on energy bills. Whatever the increase on bills summer is responsible for eg 7% of domestic gas consumption… so the immediate impact over summer would be around £10 a month. But there is an issue brewing at the crossover of political and geoeconomic uncertainty for the Autumn, and May is a key staging post. I can see why they keep saying they want a deescalation, both in the Gulf, and in gilts.

Behold, the one year chart of the 2yr yield in the UK

He did the meme

Something is clearly out of balance when someone earning £10k and someone earning £140k take home the same net amount. No wonder so many hard-working people and entrepreneurs are leaving the UK. Would you want to live in a country that punishes hard work and jobs creation?

🚨 UPDATE: They’re not even letting anyone in the UK or the EU see this clip. Lmao! What a joke. x.com/elenionchain/s…

👀 EXCLUSIVE- QATARENERGY CEO TELLS REUTERS: WE MAY HAVE TO DECLARE FORCE MAJEURE ON LONG-TERM CONTRACTS FOR UP TO FIVE YEARS FOR LNG SUPPLIES TO ITALY, BELGIUM, KOREA AND CHINA - From Reuters. This is bad.

A rather better piece of news for the UK labour market. The fastest rate of payroll growth since October 2024 during February (+20,000_. This was of course before events in Iran kicked off...

The thing everyone said would happen, happened.

@elonmusk You watch one video and the entire feed turns into video. It's awful.

Algorithm is better today than 3 months ago?

NEW Brent crude as high as $118 a barrel… Oil market splitting geographically…. OMan crude now not far off $170 a barrel

Very, very bad news. As I wrote in Material World, Ras Laffan is one of the most important industrial sites not just in the Gulf but in the world. LNG, helium, other products. Massive. Whatever happens next, serious damage to this site could reverberate for months, maybe years.

You need to watch this, particularly if you have any interest in UK energy policy. It will be 16 minutes well spent. Usual @EdConwaySky high quality factual reporting on a politically contentious topic.

Not long ago, Britain was one of the world’s biggest oil producers, with revenues accounting for six percent of all government revenues in the mid-1980s. @EdConwaySky looks at how much oil and gas Britain could extract from the North Sea if it really wanted to. 🔗 trib.al/loV0rHu