Winter drawers on

Centrica's offshore platform in the Rough field, is 20 miles (31km) off Withernsea on the E. Yorkshire coast exploded last week ... with potentially devastating, and costly consequences for the UK gas supply.

Go to Vital Trivia for an excellent detailed and worrying analysis ..

The closure of Rough has left the UK extremely vulnerable. After a few cold days we won’t be able to meet business as usual demand on anything colder than a mild February day and even that will require significant imports. The weather is expected to turn cold with some snowfall over the remainder of this week with continental Europe also feeling the cold we may have difficulty maintaining the high Interconnector flow rates we need.

As always the situation depends on the weather, as we move into March the chances are it will get warmer but this should not be counted on. The coldest week of the year could quite easily be the first week in March, with Rough offline demand could not be met during such a week.

Niall Trimble of the Energy Contract Company is quoted in an article by Neasa MacErlean the Guradian yesterday ...

This is potentially catastrophic. We are right up the creek if the weather stays cold for two or three weeks. It all depends on the weather." Bad weather for the remainder of this month or in March would probably mean rationing for large industrial users. If that included power generators, there could be domestic power cuts.

" .....we currently estimate that it is unlikely that Rough will be available for one month," Centrica's storage arm said in a statement.