British Gas owner Centrica, currently being wooed by Russian utilities companies, has announced a multibillion-pound deal to get gas supplies from Norway until 2025.
The deal will involve joint exploration and exploitation of new and existing fields between Centrica and Norway’s StatOil – and raise Britain’s imports of gas from 50 per cent to 70 per cent by 2020. This may partially address the immediate need for power supplies but it fails to address medium or long term strategies around keeping the lights on (see “Running out of power” in features). ■