UK energy industry must wait until summer for new policies
London (Platts)--6May2005
The third-term victory of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party in the general election Thursday will make no immediate difference to energy policies. Labour has shown itself determined to press on with its aims of steering energy policy in a low carbon direction, based on renewables, gas-fired generation and possibly nuclear, and a solid majority for Labour means the party can continue on this path. The opposition Conservatives, who picked up seats, in any case also back low carbon energy policies. Energy did not feature greatly during the election campaign. Many hints have been dropped, including by the government's chief scientific adviser, David King, that new nuclear build may be considered in the future, but no party saw it as a vote winner to talk about that in the run up to polling. The issue will hit the agenda this summer, however, as the government carries out a review of its climate change program. A more immediate change for the energy industry may come from an expected cabinet reshuffle Friday. Energy minister Mike O'Brien, trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt and environment secretary Margaret Beckett could all be in line for a move. Some reports have said that Hewitt and Beckett in particular are anti-nuclear and may need to be moved on before Blair can make the difficult decision of launching a new nuclear build program. New nuclear is seen by many as the only way to safeguard UK electricity supplies while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, especially as the country becomes a net importer of gas with its own production in decline, and as gas prices soar. The price of an annual gas contract in the forward market is now about 45p/th, double what it was a year or so ago. This story was originally published in Platts European Power Alert http://www.europeanpoweralert.platts.com
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