As someone who works at a surviving energy company (prepares for downvotes), I can say that some of this is driven by higher contact numbers while not building up the staff to support it:
* Calling more because they’re worried about bills
* Calling because they’ve been switching supplier due to other companies collapsing
Basically all these energy companies went short gas by selling at a fixed price to customers (or taking on obligations too) and then just didnt hedge it or hedge enough.
They realised if prices go down or stay the same they make a profit, and if prices go up they can just hand the losses back to the government.
Put another way they realised they can expose the public buying their energy to credit risk against them, with no obligation to provide any collateral for that risk meaning they can just dissolve the company if the 50-50 bet of up or down goes against them.
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As someone who works at a surviving energy company (prepares for downvotes), I can say that some of this is driven by higher contact numbers while not building up the staff to support it:
* Calling more because they’re worried about bills
* Calling because they’ve been switching supplier due to other companies collapsing
Basically all these energy companies went short gas by selling at a fixed price to customers (or taking on obligations too) and then just didnt hedge it or hedge enough.
They realised if prices go down or stay the same they make a profit, and if prices go up they can just hand the losses back to the government.
Put another way they realised they can expose the public buying their energy to credit risk against them, with no obligation to provide any collateral for that risk meaning they can just dissolve the company if the 50-50 bet of up or down goes against them.