Natural gas prices are going up. And staying up.

The price of natural gas isn’t falling anymore. It’s going up. And staying up.

The newspapers all ran this story. ‘Gas prices fall to levels from before Russia invasion’. We can thank a mild winter and a fair wind for carrying us through. Relief. Gas crisis over. TF.

The headlines they conjured are technically correct, yes. But they left the bigger story untold.

The gas we’re using today was bought months or years ago. Prudent energy suppliers buy far in advance. It limits the chances that a sudden rise in wholesale prices, but not in our tariffs, make their business buckle.

The newspapers quoted the price of gas for use now, not in the future. Not the prices that lead directly to our energy bills. So how much is gas for next winter or the one after? The price is higher than it is today.

Gas for delivery next winter is more than triple what would have been considered normal before the war. It seems to be a sustained structural shift. Five years from now it’s still more than double.I have a gas boiler. I need to accept that my heating bills won't be going back to the old normal. Not in the next few years and maybe not ever.

Using less fossil gas has always been good. But now we get money back from home improvements in double quick time.

Or is it time to get off natural gas entirely?

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