Energy bills could rise by £160 after Iran conflict pushes gas prices higher

Energy bills could rise by £160 after Iran conflict pushes gas prices higher Household costs could reach £1,800 a year from July as UK market hits three-year high Middle East crisis – live updates Household energy bills could climb by £160 a year from this summer after the war in Iran pushed the UK’s gas market to a three-year high. A typical combined household gas and electricity bill could reach £1,800 a year in Great Britain under the government’s quarterly price cap from July, according to analysis by Cornwall Insight, an energy consultancy. It forecast a 10% surge in household energy costs after prices on the UK’s gas market doubled in the days following the US-Israeli attack on Iran . Tehran has retaliated by halting oil and gas shipments through the strait of Hormuz . The unit cost of gas and electricity will remain steady over the coming months after the regulator, Ofgem, last month fixed household energy costs for the period from April to July at £1,641 a year. That represents a £117 cut from the January-March cap for millions of households but is lower than the £150 a year reduction the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had promised in last year’s budget. Ofgem will recalculate the costs faced by energy suppliers for the next quarter, taking into account the recent rise in market prices. Motorists are already facing a hike of 2.5p a litre at the petrol pumps since Saturday, while diesel prices have climbed by more than 3p after the global oil benchmark rose above $81 a barrel. In the UK, energy markets have recorded some of the steepest price rises in the world because of the country’s heavy reliance on gas for electricity generation combined with limited gas storage capacity. Jonathan Brearley, the chief executive of Ofgem, told MPs on Wednesday that it was “genuinely too early to tell” how high energy bills may climb because it will depend on how long wholesale prices remain elevated. If the strait of Hormuz – through which about 20% of global oil supplies and ...